When You're a Stranger
by Nix1
Summary: Duke and Dive encounter a slight problem when a Saurian spell leaves them all too human. (Warning: eventual slash.) (ch. 6 added, ch. 1 format edited 11-27-03.)
1. Transformations, Introductions and Other...

Title: When You're a Stranger Author: Nix Rating: R Warning: Angst, eventual slash (m/m sexual relationship), and so on. And such. If any of that bothers you. well, don't read it, silly. Disclaimer: This all continues to belong to Disney, despite the fact that they canceled the series a few years ago. Also, the title is ganked from "People are Strange", property of the Doors. *** This is how people die. This is how kids wake up to find that their world's been torn apart. This is how you come to and find out that the monsters are real and instead of going to high school, you're going to the mines.  
  
I'd like to know what karma I'm working off here, to wake up buried in trash more than three or four times in less than twenty years. Most people don't get that eerie sense of déjà vu from the smell of rot.  
  
Maybe it's not déjà vu. Maybe all of this, Earth and hockey and the resistance and the Mask, has just been a pipe dream and any second, I'm going to wake up to a Saurian booting me in the ribs.  
  
Not exactly conducive to opening your eyes here, Flashblade.  
  
I don't care. I don't want to open my eyes and see Puckworld again. It's not the place I've been homesick for anymore. It's been twisted and the sky is red, and I'd rather throw myself on the guard's claws than go back to the mines and be broken all over again. I just. I can't. Not again.  
  
Pansy. Wing wouldn't lie in the trash waiting for somebody to come kill him.  
  
Yeah, well. We've already established who got the heroic streak in this family, and it wasn't me, thank you very much.  
  
Something's moving in the trash beside me. There's a warm, heavy weight draped over my stomach, but that's not moving. So. Yeah.  
  
Whatever the something else is, it's still moving, little twitchy motions that keep getting progressively closer. Doesn't sound like footsteps, especially heavy Saurian footfalls. Something smaller.  
  
A scaly thing brushes my hand, and I can't help jerking upright and lashing out. Two things happen simultaneously: a small furry thing goes flying, and the weight on my stomach goes spilling down to slump in an awkward pile around my knees.  
  
Whoa. Well, hello, adrenaline. My heart is pounding loud in my head. My breathing sounds harsh in the narrow confines of the alley. I reach for the puckblaster without thinking, and come up empty-handed. This is not boding well for my happy denial fantasy, here.  
  
I grope in the garbage until something cuts my fingers. Ah, hygiene. I close my fingers around the unbroken part of the busted bottle and lift it up, staring at the place where the furry thing disappeared. It starts to twitch, soft noises coming from the place it went under, and I get ready to throw the bottle.  
  
A small, angular head pokes up, black eyes peering at me balefully. The rat sniffs just to let me know I've been insulted.  
  
I can't throw a bottle at an unarmed rat. Mookie would kill me.  
  
I set the bottle down and hold out my empty hand. It sniffs again and disappears. I think I was just dissed by a rat.  
  
This probably isn't a real good time to break down in hysterics. Or, hell, maybe it's the best possible time to break down in hysterics, depending. I wonder if going completely insane would buffer the mines. I know some people who tried it, but you know, it's kind of hard to hold conversations with people who are playing tea party inside their head. Never mind the slave driver holding the force whips, and all.  
  
I don't want to look up and see red dust, the angry sky. I don't want to know. Avoidance is my friend.  
  
Still. I can't just. I have to know, before I can do anything here. I have to see.  
  
I'm fairly sure I'm cringing, but there's nobody here to laugh. Tilting my face up, I close my eyes and brace myself. Please, please, let me be anywhere else but home.  
  
Oh.  
  
Oh, stars, thank you.  
  
The sky is dark, but it's a natural dark without the cloudy weight of ash in the air. In other words, it's not Puckworld.  
  
That established, maybe I can convince myself to move.  
  
My arm hurts. For that matter, everything seems to hurt in varying degrees, competing to see which can make me curl up and howl. It just gets worse when I shift my weight forward, getting my knees under me.  
  
As soon as I'm halfway up, I almost fall back into the pile of garbage when the bundle of weight I just pushed off my knees starts moving. Weak movements, but definitely there.  
  
Well. Shit.  
  
Ready to jerk back, I reach out and gingerly poke the bundle of skinny limbs draped under a heavy trenchcoat. An oddly familiar one, at that, but whatever. Lots of people have trenchcoats. Street person chic.  
  
Okay. So I'm supposed to be the alien defender of humanity, or whatever. I have to check and see if he's not dying, even if I have no idea what to do with myself at this point, but if I don't get an answer, I'm out of here. My noble gestures only go so far when I'm sitting in dumpsters.  
  
I open my mouth and ask, "You okay?"  
  
Or I should have. Theoretically. If all was right and fair in the universe. This isn't the case, obviously, because instead of 'you okay', all that came out was a rusty, airless squeak that made my throat scream.  
  
My urge to swear and kick something is scaling up by the second. I'm good, though. I clear my throat and try again. This time, instead of an airless squeak, I get a vowel sound and the feeling that I've been chewing glass.  
  
Stars. Because the garbage thing just wasn't bad enough for one night, nooo.  
  
I rub my throat. There's something strange about the way my shirt is laying over my neck, over everything, but I can worry about it later. For the moment, I reach down and shake trenchcoat guy's shoulder hard enough to bruise him or something. I'm not entirely sure what I'm planning to do if he wakes up. Maybe play charades?  
  
Funny, Flashblade. Hilarious. You're in the middle of nowhere, unarmed, with no way to call Wing. Joke out of this one. Go ahead.  
  
My head is pounding. I've mentioned that, right?  
  
Trenchcoat guy moans something and rolls away from my hand, exposing one side of his face to the light. He doesn't look great, but judging from the various scars and such on his face, that's not such a new thing. There's a streak of gray inching up into the mop of dark hair, even though he doesn't look that old by human standards. I don't see any blood on this side of his face.  
  
Okay. All I have to do is flip him over and make sure there's no blood or any reason why he'd kick it, and then I can go. Shut up, conscience, I'm busy listening to self-preservation for once.  
  
I grab a handful of coat and turn him over, trying not to snap his head around or another. If he broke anything, rolling from my stomach to my knees has probably messed him up more than a head tilt could. Still, I try to put his head at a natural angle before bending to look at his face.  
  
Which is. oh. Ow.  
  
It doesn't look like he was hurt recently. He's actually not all that bruised or damaged, unless you look at the patch of empty skin where one eye used to be. It's smooth, old wound healed over, looking so horribly naked that I feel bad looking at it. And yet I look anyway.  
  
It looks like the eye was cut out. There's this small, pale mark like the tip of a blade.  
  
Or a saber.  
  
The thought sinks into my stomach like a heavy weight. It's crazy. Crazy for me, even, the sort of wild idea that regularly gets me chuckled at and patted on the head. But the gray streaks in his hair, the scars and the crook of his nose like it'd been broken more than once, the eye.  
  
I'd like to say my hand isn't shaking when I reach down and tug open the trenchcoat, but I'd be lying. The coat slides apart and I find myself staring at the familiar gear I've seen him wear into battle. Stained and torn, yeah, but it's the same.  
  
It's Duke. A very human Duke.  
  
So it would follow that I'm.  
  
My throat feels tight, and my head very light as I reach down and tug at the glove covering my hand. My fingers are clumsy, shaking, making it kinda hard to work the straps, but after a few frustrating fumbles, the cloth pulls harshly away.  
  
And here I sit, staring at a hand I don't recognize. It's the same shape as mine, I guess, but the feathers are gone. It looks bare, naked. I flex my fingers once, and they flex with me, familiar and alien at once.  
  
Stars. I'm not sure whether to laugh or be sick. Canard was right; the universe has a strange, sick sense of humor.  
  
My hand feels cold, so I pull the glove back on. I'm too tired to freak out in earnest. I guess this must be shock.  
  
Wing'll fix it. Wing always fixes it.  
  
Duke's face pulls tight with what looks like pain, then eases. His eyelashes flicker. It feels too personal, without the feathers or the eyepatch, so I look away for a few seconds. When I look back, his eye is open. He turns his head, taking everything in with a few quick motions, then stops when he sees me. His eye narrows.  
  
I smile. Or at least try. Hey, it's something.  
  
"What.?" It's jarring, to hear that familiar voice sliding from a very unfamiliar mouth, but I don't think I've ever been this glad to hear him talk.  
  
All times he's been condescending or made a really, really bad joke is officially forgiven. He can call Wing and we can go home. Stars, thank you.  
  
Except. Except the look he's giving me is not exactly friendly. Except he's propping himself up on his elbows and reaching for a weapon that isn't there, then narrowing his eye when he comes up empty-handed.  
  
His mouth twists in a hard smile that makes him look that much older, and he says, "Okay, kid. You mind telling me who the hell you are?"  
  
Yeah. Definitely my bad karma. 


	2. Broken Glass Adrenaline

(Duke)  
  
Living in the street will teach you a few things. Don't trust cops or social workers. Don't bother with the colorful pills, because those'll kill you faster than the cops ever could. Don't try to break into a store with a brick, because most of the storefronts are break-proof. Don't forget that the smooth routine will get you farther than a crowbar ever could.  
  
And don't hesitate to ignore any of those rules when you wake up in an alley with a stranger peering down at you.  
  
I don't recognize the kid's face except in a vague way. He's from the suburbs, or at the very least a better part of the city. He's too untouched to be street dirt, even with grime smeared all over his face and ground into his hair. No scars.  
  
He tilts his head when I sit up, startled but not afraid. He's staring at me like he knows me. He looks a little young to be a cop, and I know he's not one of ours. Can't be mistaking me for someone else; I don't exactly have a common face, unless the Cyclops look is coming into vogue this season.  
  
So. I have no idea what's going on. Time to fall back on the default: smooth, yet unobtrusively threatening. I do that well.  
  
"Okay, kid. You mind telling me who the hell you are?"  
  
The strangest look crosses his face, something between surprise, resignation and what might be hurt. Definitely way too young to be out here, and I don't just mean physically. He opens his mouth, then clamps it shut so hard his teeth click. Letting his head hang, he seems to sigh, then looks back up and raises one hand.  
  
Before I can decide whether it's worth blowing the smooth act to grab for a weapon, something moves out of the corner of my eye and I turn to look.  
  
Headlights, stretching down the mouth of the alley. A reflection off of one of the cracked windows shows white paint, blue and red, a gold star painted on one side.  
  
Well. Anaheim's finest, here to protect and serve. Fuck.  
  
The kid is staring at the car, but the look on his face isn't fear. It's hope. When the faint echo of a voice rings out, he actually brightens.  
  
Wonderful. He still thinks the police are his friends.  
  
I glance over, make sure that there's no weapon directly visible in either of his hands, and grab his arm. The kid makes a small noise which I ignore in favor of dragging him behind the dumpster. I may have whacked his shoulder into the wall in the process. The fun of life without depth perception.  
  
He stares at me, the whites of his eyes showing in the dark, but doesn't look like he plans on screaming. I look back at him without really seeing, too busy listening to the footsteps in the front of the alley. Closer, closer. The cop knows someone is here.  
  
I focus on the kid again. Dropping my voice just low enough that the cop can't hear, I tell him, "You go ahead. Tell him you're lost, and you can go back home."  
  
Maybe my people skills aren't as great as I'd thought. The sweet-faced, fresh-on-the-streets kid doesn't go charging back into the safety of the authority figures. He just narrows his eyes right back at me, then touches his throat and shakes his head.  
  
'Can't talk.' Oh, hell, what they would probably do with a kid who can't answer questions, not even a block from where someone (i.e., me) ripped off some 'gifts' courtesy of the city of Anaheim. At best, it'll be a really uncomfortable twelve hours until someone finds out he's not kidding. At worst.  
  
I might be amoral, but I'm not a complete bastard.  
  
"Okay. Fine." I give him my best 'I know what I'm doing' smile. If all else fails, that may turn into the 'do what I say for the next five minutes or I'm dropping you into the nice policeman's lap' smile. "Hope you're not the kind to object to breaking a few laws, sweetheart."  
  
The kid gives me a moderately unimpressed look. I don't remember being this much of a pain in the ass when I was his age.  
  
Well, okay. I do. But I was well justified.  
  
Leaning down, I curl my fingers around the neck of a half-empty wine bottle bumping against my foot. The building across from me is empty, windows clouded with old dust. So I feel completely justified winging it over the cop's head and through one of the windows.  
  
One crash of glass, then another. The cop almost jumps out of his skin at the noise, one hand going to his gun as he looks around in the dark. Great; a gun-happy rookie. He zeroes in on the source of the noise, turning his back to us and walking away.  
  
I nudge the kid and point up at the fire escape just above our heads. The kid doesn't have to say anything, because the disbelief on his face says volumes.  
  
"Lesson one: yes, cops really are that dense." I nudge at him again. "But not dense enough to wait until you figure that out."  
  
He gives me a slightly dark look, but apparently isn't annoyed enough to ignore me. I'll give him credit for moving quietly and staying low. I might even get away with this.  
  
The flashlight is still moving around in the dark, not really pointing at anything anymore. So I follow the kid up, not half a step behind and- if I do say so myself- much more quiet, thank you. There's a window on the third story that looks vaguely promising. I raise a hand to poke the kid between his shoulders and-  
  
And hello, nice officer staring through the broken window at me. Didn't even see you there.  
  
Funny. You don't look really friendly. That could be a problem.  
  
The cop's face disappears. I push the kid, a little harder than I had intended. When his head whips around and he gives me the evil eye, I tell him, "Run now."  
  
Give me a break. It's a little hard to come up with wise ass comments for police pursuits. But there's an advantage in doing this with a mute, in that he doesn't make a wise ass comment about my lack of wise ass comments. He just takes my word for it and runs, like he knows exactly what that tone means.  
  
Which is impossible, since I don't stay around anyone long enough for them to figure out tones and expressions. And now is really not the time to be thinking about this.  
  
No use being subtle now; the fire escape clangs and rattles and wobbles rather alarmingly as we both bolt up the stairs. The kid is fast and in shape enough to make it without slowing down, tripping or stopping. If I had to be stuck with an innocent bystander, at least it's not a completely useless one.  
  
He scrambles over the edge of the building and turns to offer me a hand up. Without hesitation or so much as a glance at the cop, even, like it's character rather than guilty conscience. I could respect that, just not right now.  
  
I knock his hand aside and jump over the barrier myself. Have to keep both hands free. A brief look, almost hurt, flares over his face, but I don't have time to stop and soothe his ego. I turn and look down at the cop.  
  
Thankfully, he's not better than most of Anaheim's finest, more wind than threat. He's new, but not so new that he hasn't had time to get rusty from training. The hand without the gun is clasped over a stitch in his side, and he's turning pretty colors as he wheezes.  
  
"Stop," he gasps, shaking the gun in my general direction. Yeah, right. Your normal shoplifter might not know his rights, but I've been doing this since I was 14. Petty theft and resisting arrest is not grounds for pulling the trigger. He has the safety on.  
  
Still. I don't exactly care for being cornered, and he might have had time to call for back-up.  
  
I give my friend the cop a friendly Brotherhood salute, one finger raised, then reach over and shove the kid's shoulder. "Go."  
  
This time I can feel him hesitate, probably torn between 'the police is your friend' and 'guess what they do to you in juvi?', but another shove gets him moving. I follow half a step behind, close enough to grab his arm and haul him back in case he goes too far.  
  
Control freak, moi? Ha.  
  
It's a narrow building, naturally, so I run out of space just as the nice officer comes up on to the ledge. There's no door to escape from, nothing to duck behind. This could be a challenge. Maybe I can vault the alley between this building and the next. The twenty foot alley. Maybe not.  
  
It's not until the kid starts squirming that I realize that I have a death grip on his arm. Oh, well. Makes it easier to haul him up on to the edge. He goes still, staring over my shoulder with a deer in the headlights expression. Whether he's afraid of the cop or me is anybody's guess.  
  
Whatever. Let him be afraid. I'm busy, even if I had the time or inclination to be reassuring.  
  
Anyway. Even an eye-challenged individual such as myself can see that it's a pretty fair drop down into the alley. There's a dumpster there, laying half-open with a rotting mattress inside for padding, but whether the padding is enough to cushion the drop is hard to tell. Which could mean the difference between a few bruises and a few broken bones.  
  
Oh, well. Even if I'm busted, that might buy me hospital time to sneak out and away, and some painkillers to trade to boot. Better than jail. Then again, a broken neck would be better than jail.  
  
With what I've been told is my usual gallow's humor, I reach over and plant one hand between the kid's shoulderblades. His head whips around, and he gives me the strangest look. Not fear, but something a lot more familiar. Less 'don't kill me' than 'don't you fucking dare'.  
  
Can't be that familiar. Otherwise he'd know better than to dare me on anything.  
  
I push him straight off the edge.  
  
The cop yelps, high and startled, and out of the corner of my eye I can see him fumbling with his gun. Oh, right. Apparent homicide is grounds for pulling the trigger. Whoops.  
  
"Stop," he bellows, and it works about as well as it has the last couple times he's said it. "Stop right there, don't do it, don't-"  
  
Well, gee, Mister. Now I feel sorta obligated.  
  
All it takes is one step backward. One step, and I'm falling, high on the rush, nerves screaming, air whipping past-  
  
Landing is slightly less fun.  
  
I didn't judge quite as well as I thought. I rebounded off the rim of the dumpster, in fact, with a ominous pop that makes it difficult to suck in a full breath. Tumbling in onto the mattress isn't much better. I'll have bruises everywhere after this shit. Somebody ought to tell the mattress people that they need to make these things thicker for criminals like me. Somebody might get hurt.  
  
Cupping a hand over my side really doesn't help anything, but it does let me sit up and look around. The kid is gone, either a mess on the ground outside the dumpster or running home like a smart boy. First sign of intelligence he's shown all night-  
  
A hand comes out of the dark and drags me to the covered side of the trashbin, out of sight. I have to chew on my lip to keep from cursing. After thirteen years of doing this, I can say quite comfortably that the urge to swear, no matter how dire the situation, never really goes away. Just like pain can drown out the little voice that makes sensible suggestions like 'get out of sight, you idiot, and close the other flap while you're at it'.  
  
Done. Moving makes me want to curl up with a bottle of vodka and wait for the pain go away, but I make myself move anyway until the Dumpster is safely covered.  
  
Closing the other flap makes it unbearable in here, ripe and hot and dark. It's going to take weeks to smell human again. Weak stripes of light reach in through the holes in between the flaps, letting me see the kid's pale face.  
  
Okay. So he's not a complete waste of space.  
  
I reach out and punch his shoulder, give him a wry smile. When you make it a policy not to say 'thank you' or 'I'm sorry', you figure out other ways around it. If he doesn't get it, tough. Even if most suburb babies would've left me there to get busted, or run off to narc on me. Why protect the guy who shoved you off a building?  
  
The kid gives me a weak, lopsided grin back. With his hair mussed and a long smear of trash up his cheekbone, he's starting to look almost presentable out here. Luckily for him he'll be back home before the grime gets in under the skin, into the blood and bone and soul.  
  
Anyway. Now that my eyes have adjusted to the dark, I get to do my very best Houdini imitation. If I'm lucky, either rust has eaten through the side of the Dumpster (no joy there) or there's storm drain under this thing-  
  
My fingers touch rust, jagged metal, and. slimy grates. Thank you, whoever looks out for people like me.  
  
The metal at the bottom of the Dumpster is corroded enough to peel back without much trouble, though I can feel my fingers bleeding by the time the grates are completely uncovered. Small price to pay, really.  
  
Usually this would be where I bid my audience 'adieu', Robin Hood slipping away into his Sherwood Forest. If Sherwood was a sewer, Robin Hood were anything but a fairy tale and I was little less realistic, anyway. But when I glance up to tell the kid to stay here, keep out of trouble, and wait until the voices are gone, the words freeze on my tongue.  
  
He saved my ass. That makes us even. I hate being even. You only live by having favors to call in, debts owed to you, and there's no room for even trades.  
  
"Okay, kiddo." When the kid tilts his head, interested and irritated all at once, I have to laugh. Just a touch. "Shall I leave you hear to wait the cops out, or shall I take you down into the sewers and get you out of this and back home?"  
  
He doesn't blink. A little more of the color in his face drains away, yes, but he sets his mouth and nods. Before I can ask which he's agreeing to, his fingers reach down and grip the grates.  
  
Okay, then.  
  
"On three. One, two, three." The cover rasps loudly as we haul it up, torn out of place for the first time in probably decades, but I don't end up bearing most of the weight. Kid's stronger than he looks.  
  
I set the cover aside, then lean forward and peer into the dark. The smell wafting up almost makes the dumpster seem pleasant, but you don't get far by being squeamish. What's one more stench when I've already been playing in garbage most of the day thus far?  
  
Another punch to the kid's shoulder. "Go down, wait for me there. Don't let go of the ladder or you might fall in."  
  
Harsh, maybe, but honest. The pathways down there, running along either side of the water, are narrow and slick. I've known too many people who've fallen in and not been able to pull themselves out again. The water is deep and the current is vicious.  
  
He doesn't even nod that time, just crawls over me and into the gaping dark. I can feel him shaking. Adrenaline, probably. I remember my first time running from the cops. It gets to be an acquired taste, the fear and the chase and the sweet pounding rush. But there's no use telling him that, not when he most certainly won't be staying long enough for the advice to be useful. Besides, comfort is a cheap coin around here. So I just let him go, watch the dark swallow him whole.  
  
Outside the Dumpster I can hear faint voices, footsteps, the sing-song of a siren as it comes closer. I grab the cover and pull it down with me, closing it tight over my head.  
  
It's darker in here than in the Dumpster, not even a few stripes of light to latch on to. I can't see my eyes an inch in front of my face, or the kid as I bump into him on the way down. He's clutching the bars of that ladder like his life depends on it, his knuckles sharp against my palm as I cup my hand over his. His skin feels clammy.  
  
I slide my hand back, take a hold of his bony wrist, and move towards the wall. He resists for a moment, then follows.  
  
They've always told me that I have good fingers, deft hands, that I could walk into a police convention and swipe wallets from all the commissioners without a single blip. They always strung me along with promises that if I stuck around, behaved myself, I could have a future in the high end of things, when a twitch of your fingers in the wrong direction can earn you a life in a cement box. I was always proud of that, but now, feeling his pulse fluttering too fast against my fingertips.  
  
I'm glad to press his hand against the wall, because it means I get to let go.  
  
"It's like walking the high beams." My voice sounds strange in here, hollow, like the walls aren't used to reflecting back voices anymore. Most people walk here alone or in silent pairs, easy as can be. Even I'm whispering. The hallowed halls of the Brotherhood. Right. "The platform's about three feet wide. Slip and you'll go down in seven feet or so of water, trash and. otherwise. People have drowned down here, and nobody's quite sure what lives in the water. So. Don't trip."  
  
His voice sounds harsh, shallow.  
  
I've scared suburban babies before. I've leaned my face in close to the little prom queens to see them flinch when they seen where my eye used to be. I've lost track of how many people I've pick-pocketed, conned, threatened, and quietly intimidated since I started as an apprentice at 16. I shouldn't really care anymore, not for him, not for the yuppie scum that have driven us back into the dark corners and the sewers and the broken buildings with the other shit they don't want anymore. Hell, he's gotten more than I've given some of my own people.  
  
And yet.  
  
And yet somehow my hand's coming up to grip his shoulder, and my voice is telling him like he's street, like he's earned it, like he deserves it, "I'll be behind you."  
  
He takes another deep, shuddering breath, and moves. One step, then another. He moves gingerly, picking out each step at a time.  
  
And we walk, the sirens fading behind us. 


	3. Joke No Longer With You

(Dive)  
  
I'm not afraid of the dark. I'm not. Not like I have a nightlight at home or anything. I'm immature, yeah, but not that bad. Besides, it's not the darkness that's the problem.  
  
I have. a minor tunnel thing. Or, more broadly, an enclosed space thing. If you consider shaking and hyperventilating to be a minor thing. It's been at least twenty minutes since I got in a full breath. I feel like I tried to play for the Stanley Cup against a team of sumo wrestlers, who keep checking me into the boards. It sucks, to put it mildly. I hurt, and I'm tired, and I can't even bitch about it to keep myself entertained. Too bad. At this point a good stretch of whining would be kind of soothing. Might even kick-start Duke's memory. 'Oh, right, you're the obnoxious little brother. I remember now. Let's go home and get a shower and spend a lot of time in a nice, clean, dry open area. With light. And space. And did I mention clean?'  
  
Stars. Even joking doesn't help. No matter how many jokes I make or how many times I remind myself that the footsteps behind me are Duke's, that the heavy breathing and the crackle of the force whips and the screaming are all in my head, that this will end and I can go home, my mind won't stop racing.  
  
And I thought I had it bad two years ago, before all this started. I'd like to go home and kick fifteen year old me. To scream that even if my parents were dead, even if Wing and I had to fight off the social workers every time I sneezed, even if Canard was a pain and homework was mindbendingly dull, it looks like a paradise next to the year after. When everything came crashing in on me like a bad sci-fi movie, and I couldn't find my way out again.  
  
It's not the dark. It's the memory of choking on dust, of falling, of screaming and their thick low laughter rolling over me-  
  
"Aw, fuck."  
  
I don't think I've ever been quite so glad to hear Duke's voice, even cursing. It's odd to hear him say it. Even with his history, Duke was always somehow cultured. Distant. With us, but not exactly one of us, and by his choice. Too classy to say things that would get me smacked in the back of the head by whichever teammate happened to be closest. I latch on to the jarring word and drag myself back to now, away from then.  
  
Duke's different, somehow. Strange. Rougher. Is this what he would have been like if he grew up away from Puckworld, away from freedom-fighting? Maybe it was the Saurian invasion that turned him away from stealing and towards. well, chivalry, sort of. An alternate universe Duke, who apparently has no problem shoving strangers off the roof only to walk them through the dark a moment later. Weird. But then, he's always been weird.  
  
I can't exactly turn around and ask what he's cursing about, so I just pause before it really occurs me that it might not be the best idea to stop. Thankfully, he doesn't bowl me over, just stops short. At least that much hasn't changed; Duke's got the senses of a cat.  
  
Suppose I should be glad of that. I have no real urge to go swimming in the river of really bad things. Considering the whacked out super villains we've fought over the last year or so, I'm not beyond believing that alligators live in the sewers no matter how many times Tanya tries to tell me that it's just an urban legend. Before a year ago these people thought that aliens were urban legends, or little green men prone towards probing things better left alone, thank you. I don't exactly trust their standards.  
  
Wow. And hello, grasping at random distraction straws.  
  
Behind me, Duke sighs hard enough to ruffle my hair. Considering that it's plastered to my head with sludge, that's pretty impressive. "You could've told me that you were claustrophobic."  
  
Heh. Nice to know that I don't have the corner on stupid statements. I reach out and poke him in the chest.  
  
"Oh, right." At least he has the decency to sound slightly sheepish. "Hasn't anybody taught you sign language?"  
  
Well, I watched this one special on the Discovery Channel, but all I remembered was the sign for red. It didn't teach me the really interesting words, anyway. Then again, maybe having a vocabulary of one word puts me right on par with Duke, who keeps asking a mute guy questions in the dark. What am I supposed to do, nod?  
  
"Right. I'm, ah, just gonna take that as a 'no'. Look, stop for a minute. You keep hyperventilating like that and you're gonna pass out on your face."  
  
I'm not hyperventilating. I'm breathing. Quickly. But I stop anyway, and lean against the wall. Feeling a little dizzy, here. I feel along the wall, looking for something to hang on to, and my fingers slip into a notch in the wall. Huh. Funny. Feels almost like a shape or something.  
  
Duke's still talking, and I have to concentrate to really be able to hear him. He's talking like he's afraid there might be someone down here, listening. Which is a nice creepy idea I really do not need at the moment, thank you. "Would light help?" His fingers slide down my arm, clasp over my hand, and it takes a lot not to jerk my arm away. I'm all about the manly touchy-feely emotional stuff, but not in the dark and not in a tunnel. Bad memories. "If yeah, just close your fist and kinda nod it, up and down. If no, same thing with two fingers. Kind of like doing shadow puppets."  
  
Shadow puppets. Gee, careful there, Duke. The passing toddlers might not understand you, could you be a little more patronizing? Jerk. I guess shadow puppets were all they had to entertain themselves before TV and video games. Y'know, in the Stone Age.  
  
I make the shadow puppet gesture at him, more to get his hand off mine than because I'm really sure that a little light won't help. What's that human phrase? 'Cutting off your nose to spite your face'?  
  
It can't be that much longer of a walk, anyway. My luck can't suck that bad. I hope. Oh, please, oh, please.  
  
His hand slides away. Human skin is odd, more sensitive, and my knuckles tingle until I rub them against my side to get the feeling to go away.  
  
"Okay." Duke sounds utterly and obnoxiously calm. Maybe I ought to reconsider that shove him into the sewer idea. "Well, I need to stop for a minute, figure out where we are."  
  
Oh. Oh, no. We can't be lost. Not down here.  
  
Somehow my hand ends up latched onto Duke's arm, tight enough to hurt. Maybe it's a good thing I can't talk, because at this moment I'd be screaming loud enough to bring the ceiling down. Somebody help me, I'm stuck with the Directionless Wonder. Why did I let him drag me down here? Couldn't he have traded in his sense of morbid humor for a sense of direction?  
  
"Hey, hey, easy." Duke pries my fingers loose. "Ow. Relax. I know where we're going."  
  
Oh, yeah, that sounds familiar. Couldn't have somebody wiped my memory, too, so I won't be stuck remembering that every single time we let Duke drive we ended up in the wrong state? I don't want to walk to Nevada.  
  
A light blares to life out of nowhere, blinding me for a moment. When I manage to blink the pain away, I get to see Duke looking at me like I'm the headcase here. The flashlight in his hand is more like a penlight, battered and weak and tiny, but it seems like a sun down here. I'm torn between being relieved and annoyed that a little light makes the choking pressure in my throat ease up and let me breathe.  
  
"Relax," Duke says again, because it worked so well the first time, then jerks his head up. "Listen."  
  
And since I can't exactly sing showtunes to pass the time, I listen. And very, very faintly I can hear voices from aboveground. At least somebody's having a normal day.  
  
A faint grin brushes over Duke's face. Another thing; he doesn't smile much, or make awful jokes. The closest thing I've seen is that weird crazed grin. This is the first smile, small and crooked and rusty. He doesn't smile much. I want the old Duke back. "Newspaper guy. Comes to work every morning, sets up his stand on this street like clockwork. We're almost there."  
  
Almost where? Teach me the sign for that one, Yoda.  
  
Before I can try to play charades again, the light blinks off. "Sorry," Duke says wryly into the dark, "can't have you getting too oriented. You're not even supposed to be down here."  
  
Down here. He says it like it's familiar. Sure, man, remember the sewers but forget your teammate. I see how this goes.  
  
Maybe it wasn't a spell to just turn us human and wipe Duke's memory. Maybe this is, like, Bizarro World. One of those alternate universe storylines like the ones that the X-Men are always getting themselves dropped into. Except Wolvie probably doesn't hyperventilate in sewers, no matter what universe you're dealing with.  
  
Okay. So. Duke is Alterna-human-Duke, and I'm alterna-human-mute-Dive. Great. Fine. Let's just hope that the laws of physics hold true (law number 316: wherever Dive is, there Wing shall be) and I can drag him and myself to Wing so he can fix it. I mean, he has to know me. No matter what we're dealing with, Wing is the constant. Even in the mines, Wing was out there, and he found me, and we went home together in the end. He's my big brother. They do these things. Come rain or sleet or alternate universes or huge electronic demons or.. yeah. All that.  
  
Something nudges me from behind, and I start walking with a new sort of energy. I might not have any clue what the heck is going on, but it'll be fixed soon. All I have to do is get to Wing. Until then, I just have to say frosty. Easy enough.  
  
"You're exactly right. He's not supposed to be down here."  
  
Easy. Yeah. Until a voice that most definitely isn't Duke pipes up from out of nowhere a second before the whole tunnel explodes into light. Duke's hands latch on in a death grip as I stumble back, almost slipping. Only his grip and my shirt keeps me from going sideways. Thank you, Alterna-Duke.  
  
I can almost make out a shape, standing on what looks like the river. Everything else is just painful white light.  
  
"Turn the lantern off," Duke says, sounding almost bored. "I already can't see out of one, do you have to take both eyes out or what?"  
  
"You're supposed to have him blind-folded."  
  
"Yeah, well, kinda hard to find the blindfold when you're being chased by the police. Ease off it, huh? Since when have you been such a stickler for the rules?"  
  
Great. I'm in the middle of an old married couple.  
  
The second voice sighs, and after a second the light switches from blinding to muted. I blink a couple times and can finally make out the man standing on a bridge that runs over the two platforms. It's the same color as the water, easy to miss if somebody's not standing on it. The guy himself is average; average height, average weight, mouse-brown hair and bottle-rim glasses on his nose. The only thing that really grabs attention is his labcoat, a dingy gray, and the stethoscope dangling from his neck. He looks like an intern escaped from the ER, if the ER was located in the sewer.  
  
Scratching the back of his neck, the average guy sighs. "What do you need this time?"  
  
That time Duke grins, really grins. "Ah, you know. The usual. Stubbed my toe, jumped off a building."  
  
Another sigh. "Good Lord. Again?"  
  
Setting me back on my feet, Duke asks, "Can you work me in?"  
  
"Yeah, like I'm doing anything." Nodding at me with a not entirely friendly look in his eyes, he asks, "What about your guest?"  
  
"Eh. Might as well look him over before I send him home."  
  
Oh, please. Feel free to talk about me like I'm not here.  
  
Average guy arches one eyebrow like he thinks he's Spock. "You think that's really wise?"  
  
"He's mute. He doesn't know sign language. And even if he decides to write it down, he's already run from the cops, been shoved off a building and dragged through the sewers by an urban legend. Who's gonna believe this on top of an already absurd story? He's just a kid."  
  
Just a kid. Well, it's nice to know that some things don't change through the dimensions, anyway. Looks like I get to fight for even his grudging respect all over again, if I even had it in the first place.  
  
Just a kid. Tell it to the Saurians, man. Maybe I can get a note from my mommy. 'Please excuse Nosedive from intergalactic war today, he'd kind of like to be a normal teenager for a whole three seconds.'  
  
"Too many risks," average guy mutters, but jerks his head at me. "C'mon, then. Into the rabbit hole."  
  
And with that nice and cryptic cheery note, Igor turns and ducks through a narrow hole on the other side of the river. Great. It's a theme park for claustrophobics.  
  
Duke pats me on the shoulder and pushes me forward, towards the bridge.  
  
Okay. Stay cool, Flashblade. Keep up the running commentary. Just sit through this, and at some point you've got to get a chance to drag him out of here and to the stadium, and you'll be home in time to watch Bernie the Bear with Grin.  
  
Right. Naturally. Just ignore the sinking feeling in my gut. 


	4. Enigmas, Scars and Plastic Forks

Author's notes: Yeah, finally updating. I'm sorry for the wait, and I thank everybody who's still reading this thing for their patience. Another major and sincere thank you to those who posted reviews; I do appreciate it. For those of you who pointed out grammar/spelling errors in part 3, I'll be sure to revise that; another thank you. ;) Also, for those of you who asked about Worth and Obligation, I moved those to fandomination.net due to my objection to recent ff.net policy changes. They're also available off my website. I'm sorry for any inconvenience this may cause anyone. Again, thank you for your patience, support and corrections, and I'll try to be less lax with part 5.  
  
****  
  
(Duke)  
  
After 14 years, I've had a little too much time to get used to the whole labyrinth of rooms down here. I haven't even been in all of them. The maps were all made before I get here, and even they look like a honeycomb. They've had decades to grow out, and down. It's a city under a city, with probably a couple cities under that. I don't know, personally. I try to spend as little time as possible here. Spend too much time socializing and you can get caught up in the games too easily. Honor among thieves is a concept invented by people who never met any.  
  
Not all the bodies in the river drowned. Some of them were plenty dead before they got there. I ought to know.  
  
But. Anyway. Of all the time I've spent down here, at least a third of it was in Doc's office. He was the one who brought me down here when I first escaped from juvi, bound up the cuts and scrapes and broken bones, patched up my eye as best as he could. He's probably the only reason I lived this long. He's not exactly a father figure or a mentor, but he's about as close as I'm ever getting.  
  
Which is probably I can see him writing his lecture as he paces around the office, digging through cardboard boxes of supplies that somebody or other pulled off the back of a truck for him, pausing every once in a while to look up and glare at me. I wink at him and grin, and he just growls.  
  
Tossing me an ancient magazine off his counter, he says with utter disgust, "I'll take care of the kid first."  
  
"Works for me." I try to give the kid the same grin, but he's a touch too busy looking around like he expects an ambush. At least the hyperventilation's eased up. While Doc's back is turned I steal, so to speak, a bottle of Advil and pop it open. Three should dull the pounding in my ribs, I think.  
  
I'll give it to Doc; he might be neurotic, but he's professional. Gentle as can be with the kid as he works him over, checking his pupils, poking his ribs, asking him to breathe. Boring, really. I only make it to about the third 'breathe in' before I give up and turn to the magazine. National Geographic, doing another of those articles that most people only read when somebody's twisting their arms in knots. Something about a tribe in Borneo-  
  
"Oh."  
  
'Oh?' 'Oh' isn't good. Doc only said 'oh' once, when I was dragged in with my eye carved out. I'm not fond of 'oh'. I put the magazine down and glance up.  
  
The kid's sitting on the table, shirt rolled up around his armpits, staring fiercely at the floor as Doc stares just as fiercely at his back. I can't see what Doc's seeing, but whatever it is made his face turn white.  
  
"That's... hmm. That's very..." Doc reaches out and traces something with his fingertip, and the kid flinches. Doc pulls his hand back. "I'm sorry. They look completely healed. Does it still hurt?" When the kid just shakes his head, every muscle braced to run, Doc takes the hint and steps back. His tone is completely different as he says, too brightly, "All right. You're in perfect shape, young man. Barely even a bruise on you. There're magazines over in that far corner, just sit there and wait, there's a lad."  
  
The far corner is the 'out of earshot' corner, normally reserved for when Doc's about to give the terminal sort of news. I wait for the kid to get there, then toss the magazine back on the counter. "What's up?"  
  
Doc's jaw tenses, and he looks away. "Nothing. Come on, get on the table. You're favoring your ribs-"  
  
"Nothing. Bullshit, nothing. You don't go drama queen over nothing. What's wrong?"  
  
"That's between the patient and I." Prodding me a little too hard in the ribs, he asks, "Does this hurt?"  
  
"Yeah, but it would even if nothing was broken. I'm not asking for a medical run-down here. First he was the pain in the ass, now he's the patient, and I'm curious why."  
  
"Curiosity killed the cat."  
  
"Yeah, but curiosity put the cat burglar through med school. As you know very well, Doc."  
  
"Smartass." Doc pauses, then sighs. "Look. All I saying is that you were right, you needn't have bothered blindfolding him because he's not leaving here."  
  
My heart gives an odd jump in my chest. I swallow the jolt down, then rub at the ache in my chest. Huh. "What is he, dying?"  
  
Doc gives me a look over his glasses. "I'm sorry I missed making you my apprentice, with a bedside manner like that."  
  
I shrug and give him my best 'but you love me anyway' smile. "Sorry."  
  
"Liar." Pulling open a drawer, Doc reaches for a roll of medical tape and commands, "Arms up." When I do it, he says nonchalantly, "If you don't take him on as an apprentice, I will. But he's not going home."  
  
My arms jerk down. "You'll what? I'm supposed to what?"  
  
"I didn't know losing an eye impaired your hearing. Arms up." When I don't move, he sighs. "Look. I'm not sending that one back."  
  
"I thought you were supposed to be the stickler for rules, not me." I put my arms up, but only so I can get this over with and glare at him properly. "What brought this on?"  
  
"He's not dying, but if I send him back up there, he might."  
  
"Yeah, well, so might any of us. If he stays down here a pipe might fall on his head or something. What's your point- ow! Are you trying to puncture a lung?"  
  
Doc glares at me, then glances over his shoulder. Seeing that the kid's oblivious, paging through a stack of old newspapers, he leans close and says very softly, "He's got scars, Duke, scars like nothing I've ever seen. It looks like somebody went after him with a bullwhip, but they set it on fire first for good measure. And they're recent, within the last year or two. I don't know about you, but I'm not exactly thrilled about sending him back into that."  
  
Fuck. Trust me to go out on a regular food run and bring back problems. I rub at the bridge of my nose. "Great. You go ahead and take him in, then. You're already having trouble getting time to sleep or eat, but what the hell? Why not narrow it down to a couple hours?"  
  
Doc gives me another over-the-glasses-stare-of-death. "What else do you suggest I do?"  
  
"Send him up there. Let him take care of himself. He looks old enough-"  
  
"And when his body washes up down here a week later? What then?"  
  
"Then put on the hair shirt and break out the ashes. I don't know." Touching the metal clip holding the bandages closed, I shrug at him. "What do you want me to say?"  
  
Which was a stupid question to ask, because I already know the answer it takes him less than half a second to throw at me. "Say that you'll take him."  
  
"Oh, come on." I slide off the table and turn my back on him to pull my shirt down, mess with my hair, and several other excuses not to look at him. Not a father figure, damn it. I don't need a walking conscience. "I'm still in training myself."  
  
"You're a journeyman. You have been since the day Blade turned up dead on the beach."  
  
"Well, there you go." Damn. Ran out of busywork. Better plaster on a smile before I turn around. "Journeymen can't take apprentices."  
  
"Journeymen also can't go on high end heists by themselves, but that didn't exactly stop you, did it?"  
  
Fuck. Thought I covered up my tracks on that one. Whoops. "Gee, think you could say that a little louder? I don't think the whole compound heard you."  
  
Oh, well. That gives me options, anyway. Bright grin or dark glare? Decisions, decisions. All of which go away as Doc's hand closes warm on my shoulder. It's been years since anybody around here dared to touch me, but Doc never exactly followed trends.  
  
"Duke." Low and gentle. Damn it, damn it. "He needs some place to go."  
  
"That's not my problem."  
  
"As you put it, he's just a kid."  
  
"Yeah. Somebody else's kid. He's got a family, let him go bother them." Shrugging his hand away, I turn around to face him. "It's not my problem. Just because he's younger and in trouble isn't going to make it my problem. I've got enough."  
  
Doc just keeps smiling, like he's got me. "Robin Hood needed his Will Scarlet, my boy."  
  
"You ever read those stories all the way through and see how Robin died?"  
  
"You ever wonder how much sooner he might have died if he'd tried to go it alone?"  
  
It's an old argument between us, familiar enough that I can just sigh and recite by rote, "I'm not alone, I'm cautious."  
  
"But are you happy?"  
  
"Don't ask stupid questions. Of course I am." If I don't stop to think about it. If I spend every second of every day as far away from these tunnels as I can get. "Besides, even if I'm not, I'll get a fern or something, not him."  
  
"Mmm-hmm. Whatever you say." Doc turns away, scribbling on a much-worn pad of paper that he keeps in the name of inventory and habit. "Your ribs are bruised, nothing more, but if the pain doesn't ease up in a few times drop in and see me. I'm sure you already helped yourself to something for the pain, and try not to wash it down with rotgut. You really don't want to see what bruised ribs think of you when you try to throw up." Tearing off a copy, he shoves it at me, like I can actually read what it says. "By the way, read that last story again. Robin's sister was the one who got him killed."  
  
"Good to know." I slide off the table and hit Doc lightly on the arm. Since we're being all manly-touchy, I figure that I might as well. "Thanks."  
  
Doc waves that off, as always. "Go fetch your boy."  
  
I'd snarl that he's not my anything, thank you very much, but I know a moot point when I see one. So instead I narrow my eye at him before slinking off to the corner of silence, where the kid is curled up into a tight knot of limbs around a pile of old papers. If he knows that he's defying the bounds of anatomy, he doesn't show it. Hmph. Teenagers.  
  
I tap him on the shoulder, and his head comes up. When I tilt my head to see what had his attention, he snaps the paper shut and narrows his eyes at me. Okay, then. "C'mon. He's done, and I could go for some food. You?"  
  
He tips his head, just a little, a wary look on his face. But hey, my reasons are my own damned business. If he wants to get his hopes up, that's his problem. I'm not running around half the city with the cops prowling around and my stomach trying to digest itself. Food, and then the third degree.  
  
Just because he saved my ass and Doc likes him doesn't mean I'll take it easy. Doesn't even mean that I won't dump him in front of child welfare services and run. It's not like I listen to anyone else's orders around here; why should I bother to listen to Doc?  
  
Oh, yeah, I'm a badass. That's exactly why I foresee me doing nothing more than poking him a few times, and then looking around to see if anybody's in the market for an apprentice. Somebody reputable, mind. No use wasting him on somebody who won't use him.  
  
Reputable. Ha. That leaves me and Doc, then.  
  
I swat the kid's shoulder, lightly, and jerk my head up. "We'll discuss it later. C'mon, now."  
  
The kid gets up and follows without even a heartbeat's hesitation, and that alone says everything I need to know about whether he ought to be here. You can't be that trusting in the underground, not unless you want to end up omega in a very big and nasty pack, turning throat all your very short life. So maybe I shove him a little harder than necessary through the door, just to teach him. Better a bruise than a scar.  
  
Into the labyrinth we go again, through unused rooms and into empty hallways, tracing the veins to the tiny black heart of it all. Thankfully for both me and the kid, we get to stop just before there, ducking behind a converted generator into another twisting hallway that smells wretched and drips. Because it's mid-day and the day people are out bilking the tourists while the night people sleep like the dead, I don't have to cover my tracks too much or try to hide the kid. What few people shuffle past are more interested in their own affairs than mine. Pays to be antisocial.  
  
As the kid stands eyeing the tangle of pipes just brushing the top of his head, I wedge the door open. There are no locks down here, if only because we all know that a) nobody really has anything worth swiping that couldn't be more easily taken aboveground, and b) there's nobody more hated in the brotherhood than somebody stupid enough to steal from another member. If they're not dead, they're as good as exiled and cut off from any information that may trickle down. A truck's stopping here, the managers switch the tills precisely at 4, the password as of last week was, yadda yadda. You never know when somebody'll decide to be generous. Of course, you never know when they'll decide to lie for the sheer hell of it, either.  
  
Anyway. I pull the door open well as I can, since the wood's kind of swollen and it tends to jam in the frame, and gesture the kid through with the best bow I can fake. My ribs are starting to get a touch annoyed about this cracking thing. The kid ducks his head at me with a pale grin, then steps through. He's kind enough to hit the lights on his way through, though judging from his panic attack in the tunnels that's as much as for his benefit than for mine. Good thing I managed to get one of the old storage closets; they've actually got light.  
  
The kid pauses just past the door, looking around again. He's curious, I'll give him that. I suppose it doesn't look like much, about enough to get in eight steps in any direction even before you wedge in the sleeping bag and the stacks of books, all of it cast in shadows by the single bald bulb. No carpet, no windows, a whole lot of concrete, but it's good enough for me, and he'll just have to manage.  
  
"You gonna be all right while I grab food, kid?" Not that he has a choice, but hey, conversation's conversation. I can make fakey-nice, for all of twelve seconds.  
  
The kid tactfully shrugs, though he's giving the walls this look like they're already starting to close in on him.  
  
"Okay." I tug at my shirt, already plastered to my skin with sweat and garbage. It crackles as it pulls. "You mind if I change? Don't really care to attract too much attention."  
  
Another shrug. He seems more interested in tilting his head to read the spines of the stack of books, making faces at strategic titles. I turn my back on him anyway. I wasn't raised in a barn, after all. That might've been an improvement.  
  
When I turn back around, the kid's still looking around, curious but not particularly wary. Normal, in fact. Eerily fucking normal. With the scars Doc saw, he ought to be curled up in a fetal position in the corner, whimpering. Instead, he's a little claustrophobic, maybe selectively mute, definitely a walking mystery.  
  
A mystery it's not my job to solve, thank you, Doc.  
  
The kid starts a little when a bundle of clothes lands half on his lap, but then most would. He tips his head up and looks at me, waiting.  
  
I nod at the clothes. "Change."  
  
The look he gives me says 'duh', rather plainly. When I just look back at him, he sighs and waves me at the door, rather regally for a scruffy kid with absolutely no respect for his elders.  
  
Okay, then. I turn to go, then pause in the door. "Don't let anyone else in. I'll knock four times, you open the door then. Got it?"  
  
Yeah, that was definitely 'duh', flavored with scorn like only a teenager could heap out. He rolls his eyes, just for emphasis, and then turns his back. His eyes watch the bit of fractured mirror left on the wall, though, following my reflection until I've left. Smart kid. Smarter than he looks.  
  
I'll give him this: anybody who decided to pry would have their hands full. Glad it won't be me. Too many steel traps and too much barbed wire can get tucked away behind a pretty face and haunted eyes. I've worked too hard to steer clear of that bullshit to get tangled up in it now. It probably isn't worth it, anyway.  
  
Yeah, Duke. And would it have been "probably" a few hours ago? Yesterday? Or would it have been a ringing "fuck no" and one mystery wrapped up in an enigma wrapped up in scars sitting in juvi right now, and me on my merry way?  
  
Even if he saved my life, even if he blocked the cops... yeah. Yeah, it would've been, and I don't know why it wasn't. I don't know why I feel vaguely guilty for even entertaining the thought. Probably hit my head on the way down off the roof.  
  
That 'probably' again. Damn.  
  
The mess, our altogether too generous term for the place where food tithes get stockpiled after the 'executive branch' picks it over and takes a generous share of the best of it, is mostly abandoned. Like I said, still too early or too late for the taste of most, which makes it exactly to my liking. I go for months without seeing one of my colleagues, if I can manage it. Most of them have forgotten that I exist, and so I get to slip through here like an urban legend without getting involved. Doc tells me that everybody down here, especially the newbies, like to claim that they knew the one-eyed guy who killed Blade, the vicious slavering sadistic brute. Who am I to fuck that up with reality, really?  
  
Though maybe if I was a sadistic killer and/or cannibal and/or horribly mutated genetic experiment, I might get some decent food for once. Instead, it'll be cold ravioli from a dented can. Oh, the glamour. I take one can and palm the other, just in case somebody's keeping an eye out and happens to be stupid enough to ask questions.  
  
Apparently I shouldn't be casting aspirations on anyone else's intelligence, though, as the second I get near the door the guard, a jocular fellow who pissed somebody or other off and who looks like he'd much rather be sleeping, spots the can. Thankfully, if only because he's not the usual guard, he doesn't start snarling questions, just leers sleepily. "Heyyy, the monk's got company tonight. She pretty?" With a little more interest, he adds, "You gonna share?"  
  
Oh, yeah, that's just the way I ought to be looking at this. Because I need one more fucked up angle to this situation. Stray, mystery, victim, potential apprentice, sexpot. I need aspirin.  
  
I give the guard one withering glare, and have to settle for that, because anything else might draw down exactly the attention I've been trying to avoid. The guard snorts and waves me past. Behind me, I can hear him mutter about how he didn't know Blade castrated me when he took my eye.  
  
Yep. Murderous sadism might be really fun right about now.  
  
Thankfully for everyone involved, the halls are empty and I get back to the room without further incident. Four knocks, and the kid opens the door. He's about an inch shorter than I am, and my pants pool around his ankles a bit, but it'll have to do. At least it improved the smell, and his mood. There's even a little bit of enthusiasm written on his face as he sees the food. If the close quarters bother him, it doesn't show. Maybe he's just scared of the dark.  
  
Heh. Yeah, right.  
  
Being able to shut the door on the idiocy outside is actually comforting, in a way, though it shouldn't be with him in here. I'll just pass that one off to the exhaustion, thanks. Either way, I manage a quick smile of my usual caliber, aka a bit cynical and a lot crooked. "Okay. I'm about to show you a L'Orange trade secret, and it will not leave this room."  
  
The kid's eyes light up, a very wicked smile playing on his lips. It's a touch disturbing on that young and, frankly, angelic face, but it's... heartening, somehow. I can't really resist putting on a touch more flourish than usual as I turn to the mirror, flip it up with a screech of glass on cement, and pull out two plastic forks from the newly uncovered hole. The kid arches one eyebrow, skeptically, and I shake the fork at him. "Hey, these are valuable down here, I'll have you know. Respect the forks."  
  
Raising his hands and wiggling his fingers in a distinctly "well, la de da" fashion, the kid shakes his head and sits down again. I make a point to mutter in disgust before sitting down myself, with much more grace, and pulling out an army knife from where it was tucked behind a stack of books. The can shrieks a bit in protest but eventually yields. I feel worse for the blade, but better it than the one I actually take on heists.  
  
After a minute, the noise gets to me, and I glance up at the kid. "Okay. So. Dinner conversation: what's your name, where did you come from, and how did you get in that alley?"  
  
The kid looks at me almost guiltily, like he thought he'd actually pulled one over on me and I had forgotten. Then, resigned, he holds out his palm and mimes scribbling on it.  
  
"There's a pad and paper behind you."  
  
He nods and, with one last hang-dog look to try to wheedle me, sighs and turns to get it. In a moment he's bent over the pad, scrawling fast and messily, stopping on occasion to look ruefully at an entire section of script before scratching it all out. It's fascinating, in a way, if only because his face is almost expressive enough that I don't need to read the paper. It's all there: nostalgia, remembered hurt and a rage so black it's startling, an echo of old fear and newer joy, a faint smile, a fierce triumph and a stark grief. I've seen it all before down here, but not all wedged together in a messy sort of way. But then, why not? Life is messy.  
  
The scrawling goes on and on, long enough for me to finish the food and set it aside, and he doesn't pause until a wrist cramp forces him up for air. He winces, rubbing at the knot, and I take that opportunity to slide the tablet away. Eyes going wide, the kid makes a grab for it, and I wave him off. "Take a breather. I asked three questions, didn't expect a novel. Humor an old man's curiosity."  
  
Instead of rolling his eyes again, the kid peers at me, his face solemn. He rubs his hand anxiously, watching my face so closely it's unnerving. I push the can at him just to make him stop. "Eat."  
  
He takes the can, but doesn't stop staring. I can't shake the feeling that if he could brand whatever he's trying to urge on me in the middle of my forehead, that stare might do it. So, clearing my throat self-consciously, I settle in for a long mid-summer afternoon's read.  
  
/My name's Nosedive Flashblade. I'm from a place called Puckworld./  
  
*** 


	5. Tabula Rasa

(Dive)  
  
Ah, nothing like spending a cheery afternoon in a storage closet with an amnesiac who thinks I'm the one who's crazy. And he does; I can see it in his face, the set of his mouth and the way it tightens while he reads. It took me a long time to figure out human facial expressions, those little tics that make up that whole non-verbal thing, and right now I kind of regret it. Nothing like seeing a good friend's face reflect the look of all those teachers and social workers I had as a kid: pity and disbelief. He's going to put that thing down, pat me on the head and go get the happy pills.  
  
Whatever. I'll just wait until we're outside, whack him upside the head and drag him home. End justifies the means, and all that. So I eat my lukewarm ravioli, even though I'm not hungry, so Wing can tease me when this is all over. 'Geez, Dive, you really can eat anything.'  
  
Even if it doesn't feel like it can get past the knot in my chest.  
  
The pages rustle as Duke sets them down. I glance up to find him staring at me, way more intensely than anybody with one eye should be able to. I shrug a little, shifting under the weight of it, because, hello awkward moment? If I could make a pissy comment, I would, but instead I get to squirm in silence. Yay, me.  
  
Finally, Duke sits back. I can't really read the look on his face, but it's not pity anymore. Steepling his fingers in his lap, he says too softly, "Nosedive, huh?"  
  
Ew. I reach out and cover the first half of my name.  
  
Duke glances down and corrects himself, in that same gentle voice, "Dive. You want me to believe that you really came from another dimension? That we're all in danger from an ancient race of evil lizards who escaped from limbo, only 3 of which managed to get here, chased by a crack commando team that included, beg your pardon, a 17 year old kid?"  
  
I know it sounds insane. But hey, that's reality for you. Stranger than fiction. I didn't even try to explain that he happened to be one of the crack commandos he's currently making fun of. Might as well leave that one to Wing. I'm having a tough enough time nailing down the basics while he treats me like the village idiot.  
  
18 now, damn it, and I'm a pretty good commando if I do say so myself. Which I have to, most of the time.  
  
"Never mind the prison camp part. If they hurt you as bad as you said, you shouldn't be walking. You shouldn't even be standing. You should be dead. No kid, even an alien, could survive-"  
  
Sadly, I'm with Duke. I probably shouldn't have survived, and that's not a value judgement; that's anatomy. There's only so much a body ought to be able to stand. I should've died three or four times down in those mines, but I didn't, and that's the end of it. And at the end of it, all I'll got to show for it are a few scars that I can't even let Wing see. Scars that I've never shown anybody, safely tucked away under clothes. I've been careful.  
  
But that's what it's going to take.  
  
I roll my sleeves up, past the elbows. The shirt's loose anyway. The scars start at mid-forearm, spiderweb thin lines that wind up and end in patches. I don't know where they came from, but they're ugly and they make an impression.  
  
Duke looks at it, and his eye flinches a little, but he keeps going. "Kid, I figured that you'd been hurt. A lot of people down here have been hurt, but that doesn't mean-"  
  
I keep rolling, the other sleeve this time. More of the spiderwebs, the edges of a forcewhip scar. Claw-marks from a mess-hall brawl that killed about eight, the first night of many that I almost managed to run. The back scars are a consequence of that 'almost' part. Saurians don't seem to admire a little initiative in their prisoners.  
  
That, at least, is enough to make Duke falter. He even squints at the scars for a moment, trying to piece together what happened, then shakes his head and keeps resolutely going. "It doesn't mean that you have to make up this fantasy story to protect-"  
  
I'll give him points for a pure stubborn streak. With a sigh, I reach to tug up my shirt, and he stops me by grabbing my wrist. I make the mistake of glancing up, and the look on his face is enough to make me stop... well, everything, basically. Duke draws in a breath, but doesn't seem to know quite what to say. When he does speak, it's not what I expect to hear. "Who're you trying to protect? Yourself? This guy who came up in your story, this Wildwing? Did he give you those sc-"  
  
I don't even realize I've wrenched my wrist away until the pain hits. I ignore it, in favor of cocking a fist and glaring holes through Duke. Friend or not, stupid risk or not, he says one more word about Wing and I'm going to punch him out down here and improvise a way to the upside.  
  
"Whoa, whoa." Holding up his hands, Duke sits back, out of range. "Okay. All right. It wasn't Wildwing. No offense intended."  
  
I lower my fist. Slowly. Duke, I'm a little too satisfied to note, waits until it's all the way down before starting again. "I'm just saying that you have to realize it's a little hard to believe. That's all. If I had a nickel for every kid with scars in juvi who tried to tell everybody that they were really on a secret government mission, or Michael Jordan's kid, or an alien, or whatever. well, I sure as hell wouldn't be down here."  
  
I gesture for the notebook, and he passes it over without comment. /I'm not lying,/ I write, and then for emphasis underline it twice before handing it back.  
  
Duke reads it upside down, and sighs. "I'm not saying that you're lying. Sometimes you've got to find a better story than the one life handed you, or you'll go crazy."  
  
/I'm not crazy, either./  
  
"Uh-huh. You jumped off a building earlier, in case you don't remember."  
  
/I was pushed. You jumped./  
  
"Ah. Damn. Knew it was something like that." Sitting back on his hands with a little wince as his ribs protest, Duke shakes his head. "If you didn't want to tell me, you could've thrown the notebook at me."  
  
/I'm trying to tell you, and you're not listening./  
  
Duke looks at that, then takes the notebook away and tears that page off. Crumpling it in one hand, he tosses the new paper ball behind him. It skitters off into one corner. "You're right, I'm not." With that done, he sets the pad down in front of me again. "Blank slate. I'll tell you right now, kid, you can keep your secrets to yourself, but I'm not fond of being lied to or playing make-believe. If you're staying down here-"  
  
Maybe it's a touch immature, but he's using the 'shadow puppet' voice again. Just when he was starting to be cool, too. In big letters, I write, /Who said I wanted to stay here?/  
  
Duke blinks at that, like he didn't quite mean to say it in the first place, like I threw him a curveball on top of it. "Good point. Suppose we should've asked you."  
  
/That the royal 'we'?/ I start to write, then shake my head and scratch it out. Snark isn't getting me anywhere. Over the blacked out place, I write instead, /Make you a deal./  
  
Tilting his head, the way he does when I've got his interest, he asks, "Yeah?"  
  
/We go to the Anaheim Arena. They've got a game scheduled tonight. If Wildwing doesn't recognize me/  
  
I pause, long enough that Duke prods, "Then what?"  
  
Even the words look strange. 'If Wildwing doesn't recognize me'. It's a gamble, but hey, the Mask's never let anybody down before. If anything could pick up Saurian magic, the Mask would be it. It picks up on Chameleon, after all. And whatever weird mutant clones that're in our place will probably immediately freak out or melt down or something, because as evil plans go, Saurians? Not exactly the grandmasters of subtlety.  
  
Of course, by my own reasoning Wing should've noticed by now, and therefore cancelled the game. But then, there I go trying to be logical about my life again. This is probably a grand scheme by Wing to lure out both me and Draggy, and he's being all subtle trying to send messages by telepathy or the spaces in the newsprint or whatever, thus proving yet again why he's the hero and I'm the frycook.  
  
Anyway. It'll work out. That's me, the eternal optimist, and never mind that open manhole right ahead. I'm sure it'll patch itself up before I get there.  
  
/Then,/ I start writing again, /it's up to you. You can drop me in front of juvi or welfare services or whatever./  
  
Duke muses over that for a minute before pointing out, "I could do that anyway."  
  
/And I could tell the cops where you live./  
  
"Yeah, don't remind me." Dropping the two cans of food into the wastebasket with a sour look on his face, Duke mutters, "I really ought to kill you."  
  
You know, as many times as I've had variations on that snarled at me, I'm getting a little jaded. Shame, really. But, as Wing raised me to be polite, I try to look intimidated.  
  
With a heartily disgusted sigh, Duke takes his almighty forks, wipes them on a rag and deposits them back into the hidey-hole. "What time is the game?"  
  
I hold up 7 fingers. Might as well spare the paper. Save the trees, man.  
  
Duke nods. "Great. I'm going to sleep."  
  
Um, hey? I grab the paper and scribble, /Practice at 4, better chance of getting noticed./  
  
"I'm. Going. To. Sleep. Your deal said nothing about sneaking into practice. If he can recognize you at 4, he can recognize you at 7." Duke seats himself on the sleeping bag, considers for a moment, then grudgingly zips it open so there's room beside him. Gee, thanks, pal. "Besides, that gives the cops more time to get distracted and forget about this morning. And before you can start scribbling, I'm not opening my eye for anything short of World War 3 after right. now."  
  
And true to his word, the jerk closes his eye. Out of spite, I write /Real mature, Duke./ on a piece of paper, which I stick to the wall. I can wait.  
  
But hey, while I'm waiting, the sleeping bag is looking really comfortable right about now.  
  
****  
  
Duke is, at least, good as his word. That much hasn't changed. One rude awakening via an elbow to the ribs, an unpleasant walk through a slightly better lit sewer, and we're standing in an alley by the Pond. I can see the lights from here.  
  
Ah, home sweet home, I never thought I'd be quite so glad to see you.  
  
"Oh, fabulous. It's crowded." Another thing that hasn't changed: Duke's still an utter grouch until he gets coffee. "And they have security at every door. How wonderful."  
  
Captain, I'm sensing... sarcasm. I give him a 'you agreed to this' look, which may or may not translate since my notebook got 'accidentally' left behind. Then, just in case it didn't translate, I grab his arm and drag. Translate that, Cyclops.  
  
Gate security, as always, gives new meaning to the word 'slacker'. I mean, considering how many evil overlords/traitorous aliens/murderous electro- demons and everything that they've let into the building, they'd kind of have to be. All it takes is a little bob and weave, let one think that the other got my ticket and vice versa. My morals are bendy. I'll have to be sure to slip them a few extra bucks the next time I'm bribing myself out of being grounded to the Pond, that's all.  
  
When I turn around, Duke is giving me the slightly startled 'but he looks so young' stare. Yeah, I've gotten it enough times for it to get its own qualification. I smile right back, sunny and clueless and sparkly, then go back to dragging him. There has to be a seat by the aisle into the lockers.  
  
We're late, and so they're already playing by the time I find a seat. Dragging along an one-eyed, slightly psychotic looking guy behind me sure does clear those seats. And they say Anaheim doesn't count as the South. Heh.  
  
Duke settles in on the next chair, squishing me into the wall a touch to avoid getting touched by the people on the other side, and generally getting more cuddly than he did when we shared a sleeping bag. But hey, I was careful to leave him room. Duke the first didn't get cuddly, so Feral!Duke the second sure as heck isn't going to appreciate having the crazy guy climbing on him in his sleep.  
  
But this? This is kind of... nice. The arena smells familiar, like ice and too many people and grunge, bright lights and spilled soda. This whole Earth thing has probably messed me up irrevocably, even before we start talking about the evil overlord thing, and that's not going into the publicity stunts. Thanks, Phil. I'll be sending you my therapy bill.  
  
It doesn't escape me that this, a circle of ice in a concrete building, is probably the closest thing I'll ever get to going home again. Even if we make it back, which is doubtful, the damage's been done. The dust might settle and the scars might be covered up, but it'll never be home again.  
  
But there I go, getting philosophical. First the rationality, now this. Apparently if there's no Wing or Grin around, the voices in my head make up for them. Wonder if I'll start getting the urge to ransack a Radio Shack next.  
  
Speaking of our happy family, we've been here ten minutes and haven't seen one glimpse of them. The guy in front of me is bobbing and weaving in his seat, which might not be annoying if he wasn't about half an inch taller than I am. I have to settle for glances over his shoulders, which coincidentally only happen whenever the away team is blocking my view. I think I catch a glance of blond hair on a Ducks uniform, but they're gone before I can make sure it's Tanya.  
  
Flopping back into my seat, I blow out a breath hard enough to move my hair. Change of plans it is, if you want to call sitting in the seat and waiting to catch Wing's eye a plan. Half-time isn't that much longer to wait, anyway. I turn in my seat to play the next round of charades with Duke, and.  
  
And Duke is fixating on the ice. He's even shaken off the Rico Suave wannabe act for the moment, sitting straight in his seat to see over the top of the boards. I tap his arm and he jerks, pulled out of his concentration. Rather than turning and snapping, he looks a little sheepish at getting so involved. Rubbing the back of his neck, he settles back into a slouch and mutters, "Never seen hockey played before."  
  
This would be the point where I grab my chest and gasp, "Heathen!", if I could gasp anything. Instead, I get to gape at him in mute culture shock. Considering that I was on skates before I could even walk, I think I'm entitled.  
  
"Hey, now, don't give me that look. Couldn't really afford to get tickets, now could I?" Duke fakes an unconcerned look, though I notice his eye doesn't stray from the ice for more than ten seconds at a time. Maybe some sort of memory's sneaking through? He looks nostalgic for a minute there, which softens the lines and edges of his face. Makes him look younger, a little less sharp. "Besides, in general New York's a bit more obsessive about its baseball teams than its hockey."  
  
Ah. Nostalgia over a fake memory. And here I was like an idiot, thinking he was almost cute...  
  
Cute like kittens, and puppies, and frolicking things. Not at all cute like Estella Warren or Lucretia Decoy or any other very female and unlikely-to- induce-Wing's-heart-failure example, thank you very much. We now return you to your regularly scheduled heterosexuality.  
  
Anyway. While I'm repressing and denying that... Since Wing isn't here, it's my job to be crafty and subtle and such. Maybe if I make Duke look at the past he thinks is real, he'll see a gap or something. Saurians aren't exactly known for being thorough with their mind games, either, and hopefully this is no exception. Maybe whatever magic dimension swapping amnesiac body switching thing that Wraith or Draggy pulled has a nice convenient loophole. They're usually good about that. And if not, well, witness me winging it. That works out pretty well.  
  
I tap his leg again, tilt my head and try to look as innocently prompting as I can.  
  
Duke looks at me for a moment, long enough to be uncomfortable, long enough that I almost regret asking. Nothing like being stared through. Just before I crack under the pressure, he glances away, looking at the ice without seeing it. Finally, he says in a voice so low it's nearly lost under the murmur of the crowd in its lull, "Left the city when I was about 13. Took me about a year, but I ended up in Anaheim in the back of a police cruiser."  
  
His voice dies off, and he doesn't keep going from there. If the first bit of nostalgia made him look softer, this one leaves him looking sharp and cold as a knife. I don't recognize this Duke. I don't think I'd want to, anyway.  
  
I shouldn't have asked. Now he's pissy again, and I'm left wondering if this is the same history Duke the First had, transferred from Puckworld to Earth. I can picture that too easily, some gawky angry version of Duke being thrown in the back of a police car. My childhood wasn't exactly Hallmark, but I was warm and safe most of the time, and I had Wing. Duke didn't even get that much.  
  
It's funny, but I never really thought of his reasons. I kind of figured Duke was born the Duke L'Orange, jewel thief, leader of the Brotherhood, glamorous and stylish Robin Hood guy ready with a bad joke and a wink. I never factored in that he had to have been a kid, once upon a time. An angry teenager on the run, on the street.  
  
Small wonder he lost an eye. Amazing he lived long enough to see the Saurian takeover.  
  
Even more amazing, how much he manages to tuck behind a quip and a reputation.  
  
An elbow catches me in the ribs, and hello, reality. Duke is looking at me, and there's techno crackling on the speakers. Half-time, already. I didn't anticipate being caught off guard. I can already see someone whipping past me, into the locker room, and the glint of bright light off a very familiar mask. Rather, The Mask.  
  
I don't have time to be polite about this.  
  
On my side, the side not being taken up by Duke, is a guard rail of three bars. I guess security didn't figure on our stalkers being stupid and crazy enough to divebomb us from on high. I guess I'll just have to be the stupid crazy stalker who proves them wrong.  
  
Two guardrails vaulted in less than 24 hours. Guess Mom and Dad knew what they were doing when they named me Nosedive, after all.  
  
I land, luckily enough, on the concrete instead of the ice. My pride thanks me; my knees do not. It hurts enough to distract me, just for a minute, but a minute is all that it takes to find myself suddenly pinned to the wall by one big gloved hand.  
  
Well. I wanted to get his attention. Looks like I succeeded. Go, me.  
  
I don't remember Wing being this tall, or this wide. It's a bit like being pinned between two walls, and yeah, I'm a little freaked out.  
  
I trust Wing. I do, damn it. I just could've done without the bruises. Note to self: next time, make Duke do this part.  
  
With the hand that's not wrapped in my shirt, Wing reaches up and taps the side of the Mask. There's a little crackle of electricity, and then... well, it's a weird feeling. Like I said, nobody likes being looked through, dissected with a pair of eyes and an ancient artifact.  
  
C'mon, Drake Ducaine, help me out here. There's no patron saint for little brothers of great and mighty heroes, and we need all the help we can get.  
  
Please, Wing. Please.  
  
Finally, after what feels like a short eternity, Wing lowers me enough that my feet are touching the ground. He doesn't let go of my shirt. With his free hand, he reaches up to tug the Mask away, and-  
  
And suddenly, a very familiar, very concerned voice breaks in. "Canard? What's up?"  
  
That was Wing's voice. And whoa, whoa. Canard?  
  
Both me and the Wall-Formerly-Known-As-Wing turn to face my brother, who's standing Mask-less at the end of the walkway. No Mask isn't the only change. He looks both better and worse, less stress but more scars, less tired but more grim.  
  
I look back and forth between them, fast enough that it's probably funny to somebody who's not me. Canard, and it is Canard, pulls the Mask the rest of the way off. There's a nasty scar bisecting his face, three jagged stripes from one side of his jaw to his eyebrow. Saurian claws. He looks at me with that same bemused, pissed off expression that he's always worn around me, and I wait, half-hopeful and all pathetic, for the wry back-handed comment, probably something about stupid risks and wasting their time. I wait to be let in on the cosmic joke.  
  
Were they attacked in the last couple days? Did Canard come home? Was that why they played the game, a brief break to declare Canard king of the hill again before they go looking for Duke and me?  
  
Canard looks from me to Wing and, letting go of my shirt, says shortly, "A fan."  
  
A what? He doesn't recognize...?  
  
I look from Canard to Wing. Maybe, maybe there's some way he'll... he has to know me. It's Wing, for stars' sake. He always...  
  
Wing tilts his head. "Not a Sa-"  
  
"Civilian," Canard grits out.  
  
Wing looks briefly guilty, then glances over his shoulder and shakes his head. "Security's coming. Go on, I'll wait for them."  
  
With a curt nod, Canard turns on his heel and is shortly gone. It sounds surreal, to say that of the guy we all assumed was dead. It probably sounds ungrateful to say that new-Canard is even more of a jerk than the one we left in Limbo, but-  
  
A hand settles on my shoulder, and I glance up into eyes everybody joked were taken right from my father, eyes that don't seem to recognize me at all. Wing smiles, a rueful but sincerely nice smile, the one he saves for strangers. "Next time, wait until after the game." Dusting off my shoulder, he adds, "You okay?"  
  
No. No, I'm really not. I swallow against the boulder in my throat and try to force out words, anything. You've changed. You have to know me. You have to help. You can't just walk away. I can't do this on my own.  
  
Nothing happens.  
  
Wing blinks, and for a split moment I can almost feel the nightmare falling away. "I'm sorry. Do I know-"  
  
Security tumbles into the tiny hallway, almost falling over themselves to separate the huge hockey player from the small mute guy. It'd be funny, otherwise. Wing looks away, any déjà vu forgotten, and offers security the same smile I got. "Hey. We had a visitor."  
  
"So a few thousand fans saw," the rent-a-cop says wryly, then grabs my arm. "C'mon, you. It's down to the station-"  
  
"That's a little excessive, don't you think?" Shaking his head again, Wing orders, "Drop him outside the arena. Eject him from the game. It's not like he was trying for aggravated assault."  
  
"Sir," the security guard starts, with a sigh in his voice.  
  
"Come on," Wing mutters, then drops his voice and says in what was probably meant to be a conspirator tone, "He's just a kid, okay?"  
  
My heart does a hard, painful jump in my chest. Not one hint of recognition. Not one glance. Not one hesitation. It's like we'd never met before, and the last 18 years of my life were all in my head.  
  
I barely feel security grab and drag me outside. I barely hear the jeering crowd or the doors slamming in my face. I barely notice when my knees give outside and I end up on the sidewalk, staring at the light in the windows.  
  
I didn't show up on the Mask.  
  
Wing didn't know me.  
  
It's like there isn't, like there never was, a Nosedive Flashblade.  
  
It's like maybe Duke was right, after all. Maybe it's all in my head. Maybe it's all a story, with an extra chapter tacked on for one Duke L'Orange, pieced together from the sports section and things I heard on the street or in juvi or Stars knows where, gaps filled in by my imagination.  
  
The door opens, closes, and Duke meanders out. He seems to pause when he sees me. With a sigh, he makes his way over and kneels, without regard to his clothes. We sit in silence for a minute, and I close my eyes. With my eyes closed, it doesn't seem so real. Maybe I'll wake up.  
  
After a long moment, Duke's voice breaks the silence with a question. "That was your plan?"  
  
I nod. A few pieces of my hair slide into my face. I leave them; I'm a little busy remembering how to breathe.  
  
"Pretty stupid plan."  
  
I nod again. Not like I can argue.  
  
Something presses into my hand, and when I open my eyes I find it's a pen wrapped in napkins. Duke shrugs. "Figured you might need these."  
  
With maybe a bit more bitterness than he deserves to have to deal with, I take the pen and write, /You win./  
  
"I figured that, too. I'm sorry."  
  
I shrug. It's not his fault, none of this. All he's been is a very tolerant stranger. Emphasis on the stranger, apparently. Under the first sentence, I write, /I don't know what to think./  
  
"Can't blame you for being confused." Another moment of silence, then, "You really believed that story, didn't you? That you were an alien?"  
  
/I did,/ I write, and start to add that I still do before it occurs to me that it'd be lying to say so. I don't know what to believe, either. The only thing I know is that I've been thoroughly mind-fucked this time, by the Saurians or by myself. I'm starting to think that I'd be the nastier enemy. I add, instead, /I think I may be crazy./  
  
Duke tilts his head to read that, then shrugs. "Eh. Not a bad thing to be. Crazy is subjective. Maybe the craziest, stupidest thing any of us do is get up in the mornings."  
  
What fortune cookie wisdom. That shouldn't be nearly as comforting as it is. Comfort and shock make me stupid, stupid enough to write, /To juvi?/  
  
Juvi might be a relief right now. Then again, so might any place where I'd be too distracted to wonder about my state of crazy anymore. No more thieves or aliens or evil overlords to worry about. No time to wonder how, if this has all been in my head, I'm supposed to start life over again alone.  
  
For a moment, Duke is silent, the kind of silence that says volumes. Then he gets up, brushing off his knees, and turns back to me. Holding out his hand, he says simply, "C'mon, kid."  
  
I look at his hand, for the first time really concentrating on it without the image of the Duke I knew, or thought I knew, as a backdrop. Nice hands. Solid, thief hands.  
  
Maybe he was right. Maybe there's no Wing, not the one I thought I knew. Maybe there's no overlord, no war, no past, no great heroes to live up to. Just me, an eighteen year old kid who owes nothing to nobody.  
  
If no one remembers me, there's nobody to miss me, either.  
  
Blank slate. Reboot.  
  
I reach out, take Duke's hand, and let him pull me up off my knees. He pats my shoulder once, twice, then starts walking like he knows that I'll follow. We've gone two blocks before it occurs to me that juvi's in the other direction.  
  
I look at Duke and he smiles, a little crookedly. Looking at the sky, he says with an annoying sort of ease, "So, kid, I meant to ask you. What're your feelings on petty theft?" 


	6. Dreams of the Whole

Author's Note: Hello! Finally getting back to this, and I'm so sorry for the delay. I'm trying to finish up my degree, hold two jobs, and get married to my long-suffering fiancé, so unfortunately this fic has gotten pretty neglected. I do sincerely apologize for that, as I know it's got to be frustrating. I will try to do better in the future. Thank you all so much for your patience and your kind feedback! Also, for those of you familiar with ASL, the sentence structure has been shifted a little bit here for clarity's sake. I apologize for the change, but I'm not familiar enough with the language to do it proper justice. Enjoy! **** "You define yourself by your company And by the promises you make, And the ones that you keep. Sleep the sleep of the blessed, Dream the dreams of the whole. Forget when you wake how far you've fallen Down below." - Nick Cave **** (Duke)  
  
I can sit in front of a locked store for days, scoping it out. I can go through the same travelling exhibit three times a day for a week to pick up information, weaknesses, security flaws. I can dangle from my heels for hours during a heist. But when it comes to people? I'm not a very patient guy.  
  
It's been three days. Three very long, silent days since we left the Pond, the kid trailing behind me. It's not like he was talkative before, but at least he didn't look dazed, like somebody hauled off and slapped him hard. He just nods or shakes his head, no more pantomime or scribbled notes, even for questions that take more than yes-no answers. Absent-minded is understandable, but catatonic?  
  
Which is probably why I'm sitting in Doc's office, watching him putter. I hate watching Doc putter, but I guess the world's most put-upon field surgeon deserves to fidget if he wants. At the moment, it's the magazine straightening. Next is the dreaded dusting. Hopefully I can get my advice and be gone before that starts.  
  
"It's completely understandable," Doc lectures, flipping through one magazine idly as he talks, sounding very smugly amused. Yay, multitasking. Wonder if I could ricochet a tongue depressor off the back of his head from here. "He's had a shock. His whole protection system just came crashing down on his head. Give him a few days."  
  
How very not reassuring. "What if he needs longer? What if he's cracked?"  
  
Doc glances slyly up, over his glasses. "Thought you didn't care."  
  
"Thought you wanted me to. Make up your mind, old man."  
  
He snorts. "And since when have you obeyed my orders?"  
  
I fold my arms and glare. "Merry Christmas."  
  
Rolling his eyes, Doc doesn't lower himself to answering. Instead, he says, "You'd both best lay low for a while, anyway."  
  
I tense up. "Why?"  
  
"The higher-ups have remembered your existence again, just in time to hear some strange reports. Something about a blond kid hanging around your room, eating your food. might be exactly the reason that they've been waiting for to make an example out of you."  
  
"Uh-huh. I've only got one other eye."  
  
"And two good hands, which is exactly why you piss them off in the first place. Imagine, the lowly journeyman who could steal out from under the noses of the people who are actually in charge. If that got out-"  
  
"It'd change exactly nothing."  
  
"That's not their opinion."  
  
"Well, they're idiots. Thought we established that."  
  
"They're also violent idiots who like to make examples of smart-mouthed underlings." Dropping the magazine on top of a wavering pile, Doc adds, "Unless you've forgotten the boy last year who got all of the bones in his hands broken for sneaking into the food stores."  
  
"No. No, I remember." Mostly because it was Blade who did the breaking. Mostly because said breaking was done right in front of me, with Blade's free hand. The other had been tangled up in my hair, so I had to watch, so I couldn't flinch. I don't forget what finally made me push him into the sewer and hold his head under.  
  
Shaking that thought off, I look up at Doc. "So you're telling me to stay up top for a few days?"  
  
"Something like that. Wouldn't hurt to make the kid get a haircut or some dye or even a set of clothes that didn't look like they were puked up by a thrift shop."  
  
"Those were my clothes."  
  
Doc gives me a single look that says volumes, both about my taste and.. well. About something which I would prefer not to discuss, actually. Thankfully, something over my shoulder diverts his attention. He glances that way, and the small smile that warms his face tells me everything I need to know, even before he says, "Hey."  
  
Oh, hell.  
  
Dive, who is in absolutely no way an acceptable substitute for a Chia Pet and probably five times the trouble, does his damnedest to hold up the door and stare at me. So, as I'm well-accustomed to cutting off my nose to spite my face, I stare right back at him.  
  
It's Doc who finally breaks the silence by clearing his throat and stepping around me, sparing me a single glance back over his shoulder. Right, I'm supposed to be the mature one here. But he started it.  
  
"How you doin', kid?" Doc asks.  
  
The kid in question shrugs. I notice that he doesn't glance away from Doc, either. There's a challenge in the way he stands, coiled energy, that didn't used to be there. He holds himself like he's ready to run.  
  
It's the only way to live down here. You can't trust the world. You can barely trust yourself. So why do I feel like shit for not making sure he stayed the way he started?  
  
I kept him safe. I kept him out of jail and alive, for fuck's sake. I took him back here. I've never taken anybody back here. And here he stands, looking at me with the same blankness I've seen in my own eyes a thousand times over.  
  
Well. So what? I'm supposed to teach him. I taught him. Lesson one: how the truth hurts, but your delusions are what gut you in the end.  
  
Lesson three: how to kill your teacher, hide the body and teach your goddamned self. I'd like to avoid this one, for my sake. I'm not Blade, but I'm no saint. The kid's not me, but he's not the walking billboard for mental stability either. I guess between us, we might have half a shot. Too bad we're keeping this under wraps, the whole Brotherhood could take a death pool.  
  
Shaking off that line of thinking, I nod at the kid. "You in the mood for a field trip?"  
  
He shrugs one shoulder and shoves his hands in his pockets, still watching Doc. I hate to tell him, but the attacks are more likely to come from behind around here. I turn to Doc. "Thanks for the update. I'll be back in a few days."  
  
Doc waves that off. "Keep your nose clean and try not to get the both of you arrested." Looking over my shoulder, he grins at the kid. I've only seen that grin a few times before, mostly for the kids who end up here because it's safer than home. I don't think the kid realizes that it's an honor. "Don't let this one overwork you, now. And remember, you get a cut of everything you two pick up aboveground."  
  
Right. Like I'm going to bilk my own apprentice. I've got some morals. Not much, but some. More than I'd like when it comes to the kid propping up the doorway with his shoulder. If the petty theft thing falls through, I can always use him as a skinny blond doorstop.  
  
At least he's anonymous. In California, skinny blonds are a dime a dozen. Shouldn't be too hard hiding him in the Saturday afternoon crowds, which means we ought to go now.  
  
I slap Doc's shoulder in passing, shoot him a smile over my shoulder. We don't say goodbye. We never have. Considering that we're the one and only constants in each other's lives, it'd be a lot like saying goodbye to breathing. It's always there, even if you're not paying attention, and that's what keeps you alive.  
  
Or maybe I need to lay off the deep and meaningful literature for a while.  
  
"Come on, kid." I take said kid's arm and steer him out of the doorway. "We'll go through the back ways."  
  
And we walk out of the Brotherhood, not looking back. It's what I've done a thousand times, sometimes with the intention of never coming back. It's the best thing going for thieves on the West Coast, but Doc's the only thing that pulls me home again. Otherwise, I'd be out on my own, living the good life. Nice apartment, maybe, regular meals, a commute that doesn't involve sewers and no flunkies waiting around the corner to break fingers should the higher-ups figure out what I've been up to.  
  
I don't take higher-ups well. Go figure.  
  
Judging from the fact that Dive puts up with being steered for about five minutes before taking his arm back, I'm in good company. This is me not mentioning the word 'apprentice', 'assistant' or 'flunkie' to the kid. Unless he annoys me, of course, in which case it's all fair game.  
  
For the first stretch, the 'back way' looks a lot like the way we came in: dark, wet, moderately disgusting. Dive makes a face at me when we get to the doorway, but follows without too much hesitation. This time I can't feel the tension coming off him in waves. This time we don't have to stop, and he barely fumbles.  
  
So that's what he was doing those three days: forgetting. Putting the past behind him. And God, what a past that was. I've heard delusions before, but most kids come up with something better than reality to believe in. As comforting lies go, mass genocide and enslavement? Not that high on the scale.  
  
Or maybe so. Better that it be strange aliens who give you that kind of scars than your own kind, I guess. Better that than your own family. At least then you can pretend you've got somewhere to go.  
  
I wouldn't know. I guess the kid wouldn't either, considering that his 'family' didn't recognize him,  
  
You make your own family. The kid can make his with someone else, thank you.  
  
I look up, squinting in the dark to find the faint sliver of light in the ceiling. I know it's right about. ah. Here. Reaching back, I plant a hand on the kid's chest to keep him from plowing into me. I don't connect. He stopped when I did.  
  
Well, well. Good instincts, when he isn't scared witless. Duly noted. I could use another set of those, if while I'm aboveground I decide to pull a heist-  
  
No. I don't need another set of instincts that badly. Even if it is tempting. The heists are mine, damn it, and no upstart kid is going to change that.  
  
"Sit," I tell him, largely to be annoying.  
  
It's just light enough here that I can see which finger Dive decides to salute with. Laughing at him, I feel along the wall. The notches are still there, slimy with mold and worse. Nice to know that the Anaheim Maintenance crews are taking such good care of the place.  
  
I climb the first notch, nudge the kid with a toe so he knows to follow, and keep going. This little number was designed for people coming from the top down, not from below to above, so it makes it a bit difficult to balance on the notches and open the hatch at the same time.  
  
I manage. Something about that hobby of hanging upside-down from museum ceilings has done wonders for my ability to balance with my knees. I used to be real popular with the ladies.  
  
The hatch flips open, spilling in light and clean air. I'm not the claustrophobic, and I suck it in like I was drowning. There's something to be said for California in its own right. I miss the rush-and-run of New York sometimes, but Anaheim sparkles like a cut jewel and I'm no man to turn down a sparkly thing when it comes to me.  
  
I haul myself out of the hole and on to the concrete platform of the Anaheim Subway. Metrolink. I left New York when I was 13, and I still think in their terms. So much for leaving the past behind. Me, hypocritical?  
  
I turn and offer Dive a hand up and out. He's looking around before he even gets his feet, taking everything in. I don't know if it's curiosity, looking for the nearest shiny thing, or whether he's actually taking in and remembering everything he sees. And that worries me.  
  
Sure, Doc, I'll take an apprentice. What the hell am I supposed to do with him? Aptitude test?  
  
Thankfully, we came up in the shadows on the far-end of the platform, where people don't generally go unless they're crowded there. The tourists are chattering to each other or peering down the rail, and the locals tend not to notice anything short of an explosion.  
  
Another lesson. I touch Dive's arm. "People trying to get where they're going are the easiest mark of them all."  
  
He looks at me, head tilted a little. Guess I should have grabbed paper before we left, but oh, well. This lecture gets to go uninterrupted.  
  
I look the platform over. It's mostly families, couples, huddled groups trying not to bump into other huddled groups. They're too poor, they've got kids, they're probably newlyweds.. aha.  
  
There's a couple towards the back of the group. Older guy, well-dressed, yelling into a cel-phone at someone who's probably his secretary. The words 'stupid', 'careless' and 'fired' keep coming up. Every once in a while he stops to glare at the kid of the nearest group, who keeps edging too far into Mr. Personality's space. Everything about the guy screams privilege, undeserved privilege, and old money.  
  
Maybe it's stupid of me to try to be moral about these things. But, hey. Never said I wasn't stupid.  
  
I nudge Dive, nod towards the steps leading up to the street. He goes, and I follow, weaving through the people. I can hear the faint rattle-shriek of the train coming down the line, and grin. Wonderful. My timing stands.  
  
Mr. Personality is still chattering and cursing away, one hand swinging now like he wants to smack the unfortunate underling across the face. When I bump him, he turns to glower, but apparently it's easier to bellow at people who aren't there to grin dangerously at you. He lets me go, muttering, and never notices that his wallet comes with me. Nobody else is paying attention.  
  
But Dive sees. Oh, yeah. I'm thinking that when the kid looks around, he doesn't miss much. As we head up the stairs, he turns and looks at me. His eyes are dark, reproachful.  
  
I tap his nose with the wallet. "Don't get all moral on me, kiddo." I open the wallet and pull out the pictures. The green bills feather out. Ah, my favorite color. "Look at this. All of this, he earned by fucking over other people and screaming at his secretaries. He probably cheats on his wife, steals money from the company and scars his kid."  
  
The kid waves his hands, then sighs and grabs one of the business cards in the guy's wallet. With a pen he'd had in his pocket, he scribbles, /You don't know that./  
  
"No. But you don't know that he doesn't, do you? And you know that of the two of us, I'm probably right. Spend any time with people and you figure that out real fast." I page through the bills, pull out the bigger bills. About a hundred in all, just in big bills. "And he's an idiot for carrying that much. Consider it a lesson in humility."  
  
Pulling out the rest of the money as we come to the top of the stairs, I pocket the money and use a break in the crowd to drop the wallet and kick it under a parked car. Somebody'll return it. Or they won't. Watch me care.  
  
The kid is still watching me, a little less troubled but still wary.  
  
I sigh at him, shove my hands in my pockets. "Look. In that story you told me, with the Saurians and Wildwing and the revolution?"  
  
Dive makes a face, but nods.  
  
"Well. It seems to be that in that story, you didn't get too many choices. You were a kid, and then you were a slave, and then you were a hero. All of it was laid out for you, right from the start, by people who happened to be stronger or older than you." I grab his arm, make him stop. "So. My point is, that story isn't real."  
  
The fact that he doesn't wince says something. No pain, then. No regret. Good. That's encouraging.  
  
"This is the real world, Dive. There aren't any heroes, and not really that many villains. Just choices." Reaching into my pocket, I count out fifty and lay them in his hand, closing his fingers around them. "You never gave me an answer on that petty theft question, so I'm asking you again. You tell me right now that you don't want that money, that the guy in the subway deserves it more than we do, and I'll pay for a cab to take you far away from me. This never happened."  
  
His hand is warm. His eyes are dark. He considers the money in his hand, just breathing through parted lips. The world is slow around us, not important anymore.  
  
He looks up, raises his eyes to mine, and I can feel my heart beating in my ears.  
  
Oh, no. No, no, no. I don't want this.  
  
Then the look breaks, and he smiles. It's a slow smile, but a promising one. Mischief and mayhem with a keen mind behind it, all wrapped up in a dangerous smile. He nods, once, and that's enough for me.  
  
I rumple his hair, which is strange but somehow feels right with him. "Good. Now. Shall we go get you some stuff?"  
  
He nods again, shoving the money gracelessly in his pocket. The switch is amazing, in the way he stands, in the way he smiles, in the way he moves. Confidence. He has made A Decision, and so that Decision shall be, damn it.  
  
I am so amused.  
  
We move off towards downtown, scaring off most of the tourists between my missing eye and the kid's overall grungy malcontent look. The street musicians like us, though; Dive hands off about twenty bucks to a skinny kid with a drum, meets my eye and shrugs, as if to say 'we can get more'.  
  
True enough. I can't really say anything, even though I've been waiting until the kid's back is turned before I start passing out the cash. My Robin Hood complex is the last thing I need getting out on the street.  
  
The sidewalks take us to the center of town, where shops and lights and noise and people crowd together in one chaotic jumble. I tug the kid's arm, guide him over to right side of the street. Here's where it's nice to be abnormal; people see my face and look away after that first gliding glance. They'll think that it's a story of a nice young man guiding his blind friend across a busy intersection. The mute leading the blind, if you will. Heh.  
  
I palm a wallet on principle as we cross, step on to the curb, and catch Dive pocketing his own find. I'd rather he waited, but judging from the notable lack of indignant screaming, he's a natural.  
  
So, I rumple his hair again. He glares, which distracts him properly, and does a doubletake as I sweep past him into the bookstore on the corner.  
  
It's one of those monstrous empire numbers, of course. I target the same kind of stores as I do people. Even if it's easier to bilk a small business, these places are more gratifying. Can't say I don't have a huge anarchist streak somewhere in my black, black heart.  
  
The girl behind the counter, overworked and underpaid, looks up and manages a strained smile. I nod at her, graciously. Can't be rude, after all.  
  
That time, the kid almost plows into me from behind. So much for instinct. Tugging at my arm, he waves a business card reading /why here?/ in huge letters.  
  
I swat at his hand. "Patience, patience. Honestly. Where's the trust?"  
  
That was definitely a snort. Uppity little apprentice. Still, he follows my lead all the way to the back corner, and stops where I stop.  
  
I wait, expectantly. See if he figures it out by himself. In the meantime, the bookshelves welcome casual leaning.  
  
Dive tilts his head at me, then makes a face as he realizes I'm not giving out hints this time. Backing up a little, he looks at the shelves for a minute. Then his face lights up, and he steps on the lowest shelf to reach for a book on the top row. He bounces back down, holding up the book, triumphant. 'American Sign Language.'  
  
I shrug at him. "I figure we might as well save on paper." When he holds it out to me, I wave at him again. "Nah. I already know it. Comes in handy at the job. You know."  
  
He grins, then flops down on the floor and begins to page through it then and there. I consider pulling him up, as we've got other things to do today and all, but it's probably more useful to have him able to talk back than it is to save time. What can a little youthful enthusiasm hurt, really?  
  
Well. Other than a lot?  
  
I watch the tourists and the security guard, who is doing a great job at slacking off, but mostly I watch the kid. It's funny to see someone that intent on what they're doing, so intent they shut out the rest of the world. I lost that luxury a long time ago. Might have to drum it out of him. I'm not looking forward to that.  
  
For now, I just watch him at it, his fingers sometimes moving as he pages through. He doesn't go in order. I get the feeling he's looking up interesting names to call me.  
  
Five minutes, and I start to get a touch antsy. I poke the kid in the ribs with a toe. "Come along, Junior."  
  
He raises his head, then smiles serenely and signs /Jerk./  
  
"Yeah, yeah. Is that any way to talk to the guy who's going to get you dinner?"  
  
A frown, a flip of a few pages, and Dive looks up again. /I'm not talking./  
  
"Close enough." I tug on his hair and make a face. "Dinner and a shower."  
  
He flips me off, gets to his feet and makes a move to go to the cash register.  
  
I catch him by the back of the shirt and haul him back. "Ahem?"  
  
Dive blinks, then grins sheepishly.  
  
"Hopeless," I sigh at him, then step between the shelves. "Block?"  
  
Without any more prompt than that, he steps between me and the security guard. So he had the place cased without me telling him to. He's more than a natural. He acts like a street rat, for all that he looks like a suburban baby.  
  
I stare at him a moment too long, apparently, because he tips his head and signs, /What?/  
  
"Nothing. Nothing important, anyway." I tug my shirt out of my jeans, both of which have seen better days. Ought to pick up clothes for me while we're taking care of the kid. I hold out my hand for the book, then slide it into the small of my back. The jeans are just tight enough to allow it, though if I go any more stretches without food I'll lose that. Tugging the shirt back in place, I give the kid a smile. "Shall we?"  
  
Looking somewhere between impressed and unconvinced, Dive nods. When I go for the door across the store, the one we didn't come through, he follows without comment, but I can feel his eyes on my back. When the security sensors go off, I can feel him tense. That, and my reflexes, are the only reasons why I can reach out and catch his arm before he bolts.  
  
"Stay," I mutter, too low to be heard.  
  
He shakes his head and tugs, hard, to free his arm.  
  
I grip tighter and turn to look at him. "Trust me."  
  
A last, desperate tug. Then he seems to sigh and resign himself to my stupidity.  
  
Now, if I'm right, the security guard is near the door where we came in. They only have one guard on Tuesdays. Which means..  
  
A head pokes out from behind a shelf and blinks at us. "Help you, sir?" the bookseller asks.  
  
Dive is tensing. I let his arm go to spread my hands and give the bookseller my very best charming smile. "The alarm went off on our way in. Guess it must be my cel phone."  
  
The bookseller looks at us for a long moment, then smiles. "Sorry about that. It's a bit strange. Have a good night?"  
  
.. Which means we're in the clear.  
  
"Hey, you too." I shoulder the door open and head out into the clear. Retail stores; they're all the same. So easy it's almost not worth it.  
  
As soon as we're past the store windows, I pull out the book and set it in the kid's hand. "Told you to trust me. I wouldn't get you caught. I'll-" Take care of you. No. I'm not saying that. I'm not making promises. "I'll bet you remember that trick."  
  
The kid turns the book over in his hands, stroking the cover, then nods. /Good trick,/ he signs.  
  
"Now you know where the Doc's library came from. Just don't do that trick more than one or twice every few months per store. Otherwise they get suspicious. People are stupid, but never so stupid it's easy."  
  
He nods, and I can almost see him writing it down in his head. People, stupid, got it.  
  
"Which reminds me. Stop looking so fucking earnest. This isn't a Boy Scout meeting."  
  
Said Boy Scout narrows his eyes at me, then signs something I can't repeat. He learned the obscenities quickly. Yeah, that's my apprentice.  
  
"Come on." Another smile sneaks up on me. I don't think I've bothered to smile this often since. since a long time ago. "I'll steal you dinner." **** Dinner, it turns out, is of a higher class than cold ravioli from the can. Steak and wine, swiped from one of the finest restaurants in town. I don't often get in the mood for snobbery, but y'know, I didn't sign on to be a thief so I could live in squalor and eat from trashcans. I got enough of that in New York. I'll take the squalor, as it's safer squalor that I was used to coming from the alley of Hell's Kitchen, but give me the fine wine and caviar, sweetheart.  
  
Even if I eat it with my fingers.  
  
The kid is devouring everything like he hasn't eaten in days, which I suppose he hasn't. Every once in a while his eyes roll up in his head and he hums happily. I think in a normal person that'd be a happy moan, so I'm kind of glad for him being a mute. I don't know that my nerves can take it.  
  
I take a sip from the wine bottle, pass it across to him. Thanks to Lesson 432 (entering high class establishments sans invitations) we made it to the rooftop of an apartment building I can't even afford to look at. Lovely view, really, Anaheim laid out like a glittering net of lights. It's coming up on dark now. Took me a while to get the food.  
  
The kid takes the wine bottle with a guilty smile, but drinks. Considering how many laws we've broken today, and how many people I had to sweet-talk to get to it, he damned well better. Here's hoping he can hold his alcohol.  
  
The food is good, though so rich it's almost too much after months of apprentice rations. If I lived off that alone, which I'm technically supposed to, I'd probably starve. I'd definitely not be in any shape to pull heists. Which is the whole point.  
  
I'm not Blade, and I won't be. No matter how much I could make off the kid's back.  
  
Honor? What's that? No, living around Doc hasn't affected me at all.  
  
I take the bottle, sip, consider the view. After a moment, I nudge the kid. "Game's starting at the Pond."  
  
He fumbles, but recovers admirably fast to glare at me. /Not real,/ he signs, and manages to do it angrily.  
  
"Yeah, I know. Just checking."  
  
/Don't./  
  
"Hmm." Tipping the bottle by its base, I watch the police cars pace the block around the arena. Diversion. Thank you, asshole aliens, for giving me an out and an apprentice, all in one week.  
  
I never thought I'd be grateful for that. Probably shouldn't be, either, considering that the kid's got me softening up and tossed out of the sewers for the week. But somehow, I think I might be. It's. nice. to have somebody walking the streets with me. To see that feral smile whenever I turn to look. To teach, which is sad, as I've got all the patience of a junkyard dog. To have an excuse not to go back into that little tomb of a room, curl up and pretend to live.  
  
Overdramatic. I bite the edge of the last bone, toss it off the roof just to watch it fall. Overdramatic and untrue. I live. I just don't live like a Hallmark commercial. There's a difference.  
  
I'm a grumpy old man, and I like it that way. Alone, cranky and independent.  
  
I'm also a grumpy old man with his own signing shadow, and I also like it that way. Which, in case you hadn't noticed, presents a problem.  
  
This is my worldview. This is my worldview being utterly fucked.  
  
His hand waves to catch my attention. I turn to look, and he signs /What next?/  
  
I smirk. "What, this isn't enough?"  
  
/I want to learn./  
  
"Pace yourself, kid. One thing at a time. No skipping ahead." I tap the stone where his carry-out box rests. "Enjoy the moment."  
  
The kid rolls his eyes, then makes a show of eating the last piece of steak with his fingers. He licks the last of the juices off, then signs, /Moment enjoyed. Can we go now?/  
  
I look away. "Smartass kid."  
  
His hands edge into my view to sign, /I'd enjoy a moment of kicking you right now./  
  
"Oh, really?" Since he's ignoring it, I steal the last bit of garnish off the edge of the box. Who knows when we'll get a moment to eat again? "Were you always this bad, or is it just me?"  
  
Dive stops to give that a moment of serious thought. He looks young and grubby in the faint light of the sun about to die. Finally, he shrugs and signs, /I don't know./  
  
I grin at him, which I don't think he expected. "Hey, the first step is admitting you have a problem."  
  
Which is about when he rolls his eyes and kicks me in the shin.  
  
I could get to like this kid. I could get to like him a lot.  
  
Fucking hell. 


End file.
